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HISTORY 






OF 



BAY COUNTY, MICHIGAN 



AND 



REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS 



EDITED AND COMPILED BY 

CAPT. AUGUSTUS H. G\NSSER 

BAY CITY. MICHIGAN 



'Histony is PHilosophy Teaching by Example 



PUBLISHED BY 

RICHMOND & ARNOLD, 

George Richmond; C. R. Arnold. 

Chicago. Illinois. 

1905. 



/^7 



7- 



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Preface 




HE aim of the publishers of this volume has been to secure for the historic portion 
thereof full and accurate information respecting all subjects herein treated, and to 
present the data thus gathered in a clear and impartial manner. If, as is their hope, 
the}' have succeeded in this endeavor, the credit is mainly due to the diligent and exhaustive re- 
search of the editor of the historic statement, Capt. Augustus H. Gansser, of Bay City. In col- 
lecting and arranging the material which has entered into this history, it has been his aim 
to secure facts and to present them in an interesting form. His patient and conscientious 
labor in tiie compilation and presentation of the data is shown in the historical portion of 
this volume. The record gives an interesting and elaborate description of the aboriginal 
inhabitants, the natural features and the early society of this section, the story of its settle- 
ment and a comprehensive account of the organization of Bay County and the Bay Cities, 
giving the leading events in the stages of their development and the growth of their indus- 
tries to the present time, as set forth in the table of contents. All topics and occurrences are 
included which are essential to the usefulness of the history. Although the original purpose 
of the author was to limit the narrative to the close of 1904, he has deemed it proper to touch 
on many matters relating to the current year, especially such as refer to the union of the Bay 
Cities. 

The reviews of resolute and strenuous lives, which make up the biographical depart- 
ment of tlie volume, and whose authorship for the most part is entirely independent of that 
of the history, are admirably adapted to foster local ties, to inculcate patriotism and to empha- 
size the rewards of industry, dominated by intelligent purpose. They constitute a most ap- 
propriate medium of perpetuating personal annals and will be of incalculable value to the 
descendants of those commemorated. They bring into bold relief careers of enterprise and 
thrift and make manifest valid claims to honorable distinction. If "Biography is the only 
true History," it is obviously the duty of men of the present time to preserve in this enduring 
form the story of their lives in order that their posterity may dwell on the successful strug- 



5 PREFACE. 

gles thus recorded, and profit by their example. These sketches, replete with stirring inci- 
dents and intense experiences, will naturally prove to most of the readers of this book its 
most attractive feature. 

In the aggregate of personal memoirs thus collated will be found a vivid epitome of the 
growth of Bay County, which will fitly supplement the historic statement ; for the develop- 
ment of the county is identified with that of the men and women to whom it is attributable. 
The publishers have endeavored in the preparation of the work to pass over no feature of it 
slightingly, but to give heed to the minutest details, and thus to invest it with a substantial 
accuracy which no other treatment would afiford. The result has amply justified the care 
thus exercised, for in our belief no more reliable production, under the circumstances, could 
be laid before its readers. 

We have given special prominence to the portraits of representative citizens, which 
appear throughout this volume, and believe they will prove a most interesting feature of 
the work. We have sought to illustrate the different spheres of industrial and professional 
achievement as conspicuously as possible. To those who have kindly interested themselves in 
the successful preparation of this work, and who have voluntarily contributed most useful 
information and data, we herewith tender our grateful acknowledgment. 

Chicago, III., May, 1905. THE PUBLISHERS. 



—NOTE.— 1 



All the biographical sketches published in this volume were submitted 
to their respective subjects or to the subscribers, from whom the facts 
were primarily obtained, for their approval or correction before going to 
press; and a reasonable time was allowed in each case for the return of 
the typewritten copies. Most of them were returned to us within the time 
allotted, or before the work was printed, after being corrected or revised; 
and these may therefore be regarded as reasonably accurate. 

A few, however, were not returned to us; and, as we have no means 
of knowing whether they contain errors or not, we can not vouch for 
their accuracy. In justice to our readers, and to render this work more 
valuable for reference purposes, we have indicated these uncorrected 
sketches by a small asterisk (*), placed immediately after the name of the 
subject. They will all be found on the last pages of the book. 

RICHMOND & ARNOLD. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
A Brief Sketch of Early Michigan 17 

CHAPTER II. 
The Aboriginal Period 27 

Virgin Forests, Trackless Swamps and Lake-Bound Prairies — "O-Sauk-E-Non,"' the "Land of the Sauks" — 
Indian Tribes and Chieftains — Manners, Customs and Modes of Life of the Aborigines — The Overthrow of the 
Sauks by the Confederated Tribes — The Indians as Found by the Pioneers — The Indians of To-day. 

CHAPTER III. 
The Colonial Period 48 

The Onward March of Civilization — The Pale Faces Westward Bound — Years of Exploration, and Trading 
with the Indians — Trappers, Hunters and Adventurers — The Saginaw Valley for Years the Northern most 
Outpost of Civilization in the Northwest Territory — Indian Title to Land Extinguished — The Earliest White 
Settlers. 

CHAPTER IV. 
Early Settlements and Settlers 60 

The Indians and Trappers Give Way to the Settlers — Planting of Settlements — Memoirs and Reminiscences 
of Prominent Pioneers — The Period of Reckless Land Speculation and "Wild-Cat" Banks— Indian Mounds and 
Legends — The Mound Builders — O-ge-ma-ke-ga-to and Other Indian Chiefs — Incidents of Pioneer Life on the 
Saginaw River and Its Tributaries — Character Sketches and Anecdotes. 

CHAPTER V. 

Organization and Growth of Bay County 99 

Early Land Transactions and Settlements — Hampton Township Erected — Early Elections — The Strenuous 
Fight for Separation from Saginaw County — Era of Prosperity — Early Official Transactions — Arenac County 
Erected — Census Figures and Some Vital Statistics — Synopsis of Election Returns — Some of Those Who Have 
Served in Official Positions — Roster of County Officials. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VI. 
Creation and Growth of the Cities, Townships and Villages of the County 122 

Incorporation and Growth of the Villae;e of Bay City, the Successor of Lower Saginaw and Portsmouth Village — 
Chartered as a City — Roster of City Officials — History of the Villages of Banks, Salzburg and Wenona and of 
Their Successor, West Bay City— Roster of Village and City Officials— The Townships of the County with 
Historical, Geographical and Census Data— The Villages of Essexville, Kawkawlin, Pinconning, Auburn 
and " Iceburg, U. S. A." 



CHAPTER VII. 

Natural Resources and Advantages of Bay County 162 

Climate— Easy Water Communication Provided by the Rivers and Saginaw Bay— A Paradise of Fish and 
Game— Rich Mineral and Agricultural Resources— Pine and Hardwood Timber— Extensive Underlying 
Deposits of Salt and Coal — Rich Soil and Fruitful Farms — "Garden Spot of Michigan." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Greater Bay City.— 1865-1905 166 

Remarkable Evolution of the Bay Cities from Booming Frontier Lumber Communities to Hives of Varied Indus- 
tries^The Rise and Decline of the Lumber and Salt Industries— Municipal Improvements — Public Buildings 
and Business Blocks— The Revival of the Lumber Industry— The Center of America's Beet Sugar Industry- 
Chemical Factories, Chicory Mills and Varied Industries — Discovery of Coal — Iron and Steel Industries — Mam- 
moth Ship-Building Plants and Dry Docks — Fish and Game — The Fight for Consolidation — The First Officers 
of Greater Bay City — The Charter. 



CHAPTER IX. 
Bay County's Lumber, Salt and Coal Industries and Transportation Facilities 215 



CHAPTER X. 
Sugar Beets, Agricultural Products, Fish and Varied Industries 237 



CHAPTER XL 
The Bench and Bar and the Medical Profession 254 



lo CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XII. 
Churches, Religious Societies, Hospitals and Ch.^rities 272 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Public Schools, Libraries and the Press 310 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Fraternal, Benevolent and Labor Organizations 326 

CHAPTER XV. 
Bay County's Military Record , 342 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Minor Mention — Odds and Ends 359 

Biographical 367 



INDEX 



Biodrapbical 



PAGE 

Allen, George A 724 

Ambrose, Josiah Little. M. D... 483 

Ames, George W 671 

Andrews, Martin M 376 

ApDold, Christian 614 

Appold, Mary Barbary, Miss... 589 

Arnold, John C 655 

Arnold, John G 404 

Arnold, John M 680 

Arnold, Michael J 598 

.•\twiH, Thomas 426 

Averell, Charles M., Capt 427 

Babcock, Edward C 684 

Bailey, Arthur D 464 

Baker, Oscar W 485 

Barclay, Jonathan Smith, Hon. . 588 

Becker. Hiram B., Capt 643 

Beeckman, Peter 545 

Bentley, Oscar F 466 

Berger, John 536 

Beyer, Frederick 605 

Bigelow, Charles A 457 

Birney, James Gillespie, Hon. . . . 413 

Birney, James, Hon 408 

Blodgett, Horace D 436 

Boehringer Brothers 386 

Boes, Jacob F 682 

Borton, Bethuel 546 

Boutel, Benjamin, Capt 461 

Bradley, Nathan B., Hon 371 

Brockway, James E 443 

Brown, Russell Warner. M. D. . 624 

Bublitz, .\ugust 476 

Buck, Homer E 708 



PAGE 

Callender, William Elisha Crosby 472 

Campbell, Sydney S., Hon 531 

Chatfield, Clarence B 666 

Churchill, Worthy Lovell, Hon.. 578 

Clark, Dillon Prosser 584 

Clark, Henry 475 

Clements, Henry 648 

Clifft, William Orrin 425 

Carroll, John 393 

Cobb, George P., Hon 391 

Cole, George S 395 

Collins, Chester L., Hon 421 

Collins, W. A 407 

Coman, Lucien S 596 

Conover, Richard Field 397 

Corliss, E. E 398 

Cressey, E. Wilson 558 

Cuthbert, Charles C, Serg.-Maj. 645 
Cuthbert, William 568 

Davies, Meurig Lloyd 701 

Dunbar, Erastus Lord 465 

Dunham, Frederick William . . . 532 

Fades, Herbert Alfred, M. D. . . 523 

Egbert, John W 662 

Eickemeyer, Edward A 431 

Emery, John H 656 

Endline, John 715 

Englehardt, Charles F 525 

Erwin. Robert W., B. S., M. D. . 401 
Evans, Edward E 685 

Feinauer, John .Andrew 620 

Fitield. Eugene 627 

Fisher, Spencer O., Hon 573 



PAGE 

Fitzhugh, William D 373 

Foss, Edgar B 698 

Fowler, John 524 

Fox, George R 424 

Fox. Willis D 629 

Francis, Griffith H., Hon 403 

Francis, Adolph 647 

Frank, Ernst 382 

Eraser, James 369 

Friday, William H 412 

Gail. Cyrus A 385 

Gallagher. Morton, M. D 600 

Gansser, Augu.st H., Capt 690 

Garland, Michael 565 

Gates. Otto B., Dr 640 

Gilbert. Harvey, M. D 713 

Gillespie, Richard 680 

Gillette. Hezekiah M 417 

Gres, Francis, Rev 418 

Greul, Paulus 710 

Griswold, Harry 521 

HafFey, Joseph P 544 

Hau.xhurst. John Walker, M. D.. 668 

Hearit, John 712 

Heinzniann. Christopher 467 

Herbolshimer, George A 634 

Hewitt. John C 505 

Hill. Lsaac H 603 

Hiller. Cyrus 447 

Hinman, William L 436 

Hitchcock. Charles W 432 

Hoffman. Frank H 542 

Hofmann. Andrew F 646 



12 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Horn. Charles 484 

Horton. Henian 486 

Howell, Chatford A 556 

Huljbell. George B 660 

Ittner. John P 528 

Jennison, C. E 368 

Johnson, Elof L 417 

Johnson, Jonas 672 

Johnston, J. Madison 593 

Joslyn. Lee E 433 

Kaiser, Julius 644 

Keating, Patrick, Sr 563 

Kelley, William M S90 

Kelley, William George, M. D. . . 618 

Kelton, John M 526 

Kern, Chester A 494 

Kern, John Chatfield 487 

King, Robert L 398 

Kohn. Joseph E 493 

Knodle, Valentine 696 

Knaggs, J. W 512 

Knecht, Louis 570 

Knight, Birdseye, Hon 422 

Krabbe, Carl 413 

Kraner, August 583 

Kraner, Henry 583 

Kuhlow, Charles F 686 

Laing, John B 54S 

Landon, Henry B., A. M., M. D. 451 

Lane, Robert R 646 

Langlois, Eutrope, Rev 448 

Larouche, Peter 452 

Lefebvre, Edward Augustin,Rev. 599 

Lemieux, Honore 586 

Letourneau, Nelson 685 

Lewis, Adna G 715 

Lewis, L. R., M. D 504 

Lijewski, Joseph 524 

Lind, Peter, Hon 569 

Linderman, Elizabeth, Mrs 649 

Link. John A 523 

Magill, William E., M. D 597 

Marston, Isaac, Hon 657 

Marston, Thomas Frank 654 

Martens, Phillip 665 

Masson, Eustache, Jr 664 

Maxwell, Andrew Crosby, Hon . . 384 
McClatchev, Albert 444 



McDonald, Charles P 723 

McEwan, William 388 

McGuinnes, John 720 

McGuire, Margaret L., Miss ... 411 

McKinney, John Y., Capt 608 

Meiselbach, Oscar F 508 

Merrill, Frank C 491 

Merritt, Walter 402 

Miller, Frank A 452 

Mohr, Frank H 545 

Molyneaux, Thomas 721 

Monroe, Robert 638 

Moritz, John B 635 

Mosher, George Learned 606 

Munger, Averton Edmund 526 

Nabert, Bruno C 541 

Nelles, Nelson 623 

Nerreter, Charles 609 

Newkirk, Charles F., M.A., M.D. 675 

Nitschka. William 442 

Niven, Robert 673 

Nuffer, George A 620 

Nuffer, John M 587 



Orr, Brakie J. 



633 



Padley, Richard 625 

Paige, Frederick D 725 

Peoples. William 558 

Phelps, Perry 496 

Poquette, Joseph 505 

Porter, Edward W 543 

Potter, James H 613 

Powell. Salina, Mrs 564 



Raby. Cyrelle 

Radzinski, Alfred J.. M. D 

Rafter, Thomas, Rev 

Randall, Floyd Hamilton, B, S., 

M. D 

Reid, William 

Reilley, Edgar J 

Richards, Paul 

Rivard, Frank 

Rivkin, Hyman 

Roecker, William G 

Rosebush, Louis 

Ross, William M 

Rowden, John C 

Rueger, George, Sr 

Ruhstofer, Lawrence 

Ruterbush, Herman 



699 

454 
471 

503 
617 

585 
674 
538 
610 
511 
72s 
476 
604 
713 
456 
693 



PAGE 

Scliultz. Julius 406 

Schutjes, H. J. H., Rev 411 

Second National Bank, The Old 372 

Sermeyer, Frank 678 

Sharpe, John H 615 

Sliearer, Fred E 630 

Shepard. Theodore F., Hon 502 

Sigeiko, Joachim 676 

Simpkins, Abram 639 

Simpson, William W 711 

Sims, Walter, Elder 636 

Slocum, Clarence H 453 

Smith, Peter C, Capt 527 

Snyder, John P., M. D 507 

Stewart, Allen L 394 

Stewart, John A 438 

Stevens, Jerome B 536 

Stone, David F., M. D 443 

Taylor, Robbins B 397 

Thomas, Henry H 702 

Thompson, Dell H 656 

Thompson, Henry C 677 

Timm, Fred 488 

Tobias, Lucious W 653 

Tough, George C 704 

Tupper, Horace, M. D 367 

Tupper, Virgil L., A. M., M. D. 497 

Turmell, Octave 660 

Turner, George, Capt 707 

Turner, Henry 636 

Tyler, Columbus V., Hon., M. D. 663 
Tyler, Frank Elliott 679 

Underwood, Charles C 595 

Van Poppelen, Henry 668 

Van Rooy, R. G., Rev 577 

Van Tuyl, Fred C 717 

Vanbuskirk, Yetta, Mrs 568 

Vanderbilt, Louis 405 

Vankleeck, James, Hon 696 

Vennix, Gerardus 441 

Vogtmann, John A 722 

Wagner. Philip F 719 

Wagner, William 626 

Wait, Samuel F 618 

Walker, Clarence E 455 

Walsh, John 498 

Walsh, William C 719 

Walton, Frank Griswold 518 

Ward, William J 482 



INDEX. 



13 



PAGE 

Weber. John L 700 

Wedthoff, George E 607 

Weiss. Andrew 492 

Wentworth, Justin 554 

Wheeler, Chesley 616 

Wheeler, Frank Willis, Hon. . . . 617 

Wilcox, David 495 

Willcox, L. G., Major 379 

Williams, Mary, A. W., M. D. . . 445 



PAGE 

Williams, Walter W., M. D 445 

Wilson, Fitzland L 649 

Wilson, John, Jr 508 

Wissmueller, Lorenz A., Rev.... 537 

Wittwer, Ernst A 386 

Woodworth, Frank T 481 

Woolson, John O., Capt 501 

World's Star Knitting Company 694 
Wratten, Edward M 683 



PAGE 

Wright, Hamilton Mercer, Hon., 

B. A., M. A., LL. B 533 

Wyss, John G., Rev 553 

Young, David H 689 

Young, Frank P 661 

Young, Sylvester C 423 

Zagelmeyer, Alexander, Hon. . . . 477 
Zube, Albert 474 



Tllttstrations 



PAGE 

Arbeiter Hall and Hose House 

No. 6 no 

Ames, George W 670 

Baptist Church, First 290 

Bay City Fire Dept. — East Side 

Headquarters 152 

Bay City Fire Dept. — West Side 

Headquarters no 

Bay City Water Works, — West 

Side no 

Bay County Court House 92 

Bay County Poor Farm 92 

Beet Sugar Factory, Views in a 248 

Becker, Capt. Hiram B 642 

Becker, Mrs. Lucy E 642 

Boutell, Capt. Benjamin 460 

Campbell, Hon. Sydney S 530 

Catholic Churches — 

St. Boniface 550 

St. James' 36 

St. Stanislaus' 290 

Center Avenue, Looking East ... 66 

Children's Home 290 

City Hal! and Public Library... 54 
Coal Mines — 

Wenona 226 

Wolverine, No. 3 226 

Cobb, Hon. George P 390 

Collins, Hon. Chester L 420 

Cornfield in Bangor Township, A 226 

Crapo Block 66 

Dry Docks — 

Floating 134 

Capt. James Davidson's no 

Eickemeyer, Edward A 430 

Erwin, Robert W., B. S., M. D. 400 

Federal Building 204 

First Building Erected in Bay 

City 92 

Fisher, Hon. Spencer 572 

Gansser, Capt. A. H 16 

Globe Hotel, Old 92 

Griswold, Harry 520 



PAGE 

Hanson-Ward Veneer Co., Plant 

of 178 

High Schools — 

Bay City, East Side 44 

Bay City, West Side 320 

Hill, Isaac H 602 

Holy Rosary Academy 550 

Industrial Works and Railroad 

Crane 226 

Johnston, J. Madison 592 

Keating, Patrick, Sr 562 

Kraner, Mr. and Mrs. Henry and 

Family 582 

Landon, Henry B., A. M., M. D. 450 
Launch at the West Bay City 

Ship Building Co.'s Shipyard 134 
Lighthouse, New, — Entrance to 

Harbor 152 

Lower Saginaw in 1837 26 

Lower Saginaw in 1854 47 

Lumber-Yard of E. B. Foss & 

Co 178 

Masonic Temple 204 

Mercy Hospital 290 

Merrill, Frank C 490 

Methodist Episcopal Churches — 

First 36 

Madison Avenue 36 

Michigan Central Railroad Depot 22 
Michigan Chemical Co., Plant of 76 
Midland Street, Looking West . . 66 

Nabert, Bruno C 540 

National Chickory Co., East Side 

Mill and Yard of 76 

National Cycle Mfg. Co., Factory 

of 76 

Nelles, Nelson 622 

New Republic House 204 

Orr, Brakie J 632 

Phcenix Block 66 

Potter, James H 612 

Presbyterian Churches — 

First 290 

Westminster 36 



PAGE 

Protestant Episcopal Church, 
Trinity 36 

Public Schools — 

Dolsen 44 

Fremont 44 

Kolb 320 

Park 320 

Washington 44 

Rafter, Rev. Thomas 470 

Range Light, — Entrance to Har- 
bor 152 

Roecker. William G 510 

Sage Library 320 

Salt Block of Kern Mfg. Co., A 178 

Sawmill of Kern Mfg. Co 178 

Schutjes, Rev. H. J. H 410 

Shipyard of the West Bay City 

Ship Building Co 134 

Soldiers' Rest Monument 22 

Sugar Beets, a Field of 248 

Sugar Beets, Polish Women 

Weeding 248 

Sugar Factory, German-Ameri- 
can 248 

Sugar Factory, West Bay City. . 248 

Third Street Bridge 22 

Tobias, Lucious W 652 

"Tom Dowling," Raft - Towing 

Tug i34_ 

Train of Logs 178 

Tupper, Horace, M. D 366 

Turner, Capt. George 706 

Vennix. Mr. and Mrs. Gerardus 440 
Washington Theater Building. . . 204 

Wenona Beach 152 

Willcox. Maj. L. G 378 

Woodworth, Frank T 480 

Woolson, Capt. John 500 

Wyss, Rev. John G 55 1 

Young Chemical Co., W. D., 

Plant of 76 

Young, David H 688 




^. ^.6^.^%^M^.Jlr^,^ 



Ristory of Bay County 



CHAPTER I. 



A BRIEF SKETCH OF EARLY MICHIGAN 

Downward through the evening twilight, 
In the days that are forgotten, 
In the unremembered ages. 

— The Song of Hiaivatha. 



Just one hundred years ago, on January 
II, 1805, Congress passed the bill for the or- 
ganization of Michigan Territory. Thus was 
created, from the then scarcely known and 
seemingly boundless Northwest Territory, a 
distinct community, which in the century to 
come was destined to develop and prosper, as 
one of the brightest stars in the constellation 
of our sisterhood of States. 

To understand the history of ^lichigan, 
one must go beyond the territorial period and 
take a fleeting glance into the hazy mists of 
past and unknown ages. This period is entirely 
within the realm of scientific research. Pre- 
historic upheavals, the glacial period and the 
great floods, have given Michigan her present 
geological formation. Isolated rocks and the 
rich al]u\ian deposits on our soil indicate the 
action of floating ice and great floods. The 
Great Lakes, which bound Michigan on almost 
all sides and give to her unsurpassed transpor- 
tation facilities, are the deep pools whicli lay 
1 



too low to be drained by the great upheavals 
which laid bare the land. Thus do the scien- 
tists account for the wealth of our mineral 
resources, the boundless fertility of plain and 
prairie, and the towering forests. Truly Mich- 
igan has been blessed with the richest gifts of 
Nature. 

Prehistoric relics found all over the State 
show plainly that these blessings were appre- 
ciated and enjoyed by the aboriginal people 
who inhabited the \\'estern Hemisphere. In 
scattered mounds and nooks and caves we find 
a nuiltitude of signs, of crude utensils and fos- 
sils, that speak to us in a voiceless language 
of a past out of which no other tidings will 
ever come. 

Ages have passed since then and a new era 
has dawned, — tiie aboriginal period. Dense 
virgin forests, trackless swamps, and lake- 
bound prairies form the background, and the 
only living beings are the savage red men and 
the wild beasts of the jungle. The great 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



waters are unruffled save by the Indians" bark- 
canoes and the storms of heaven. 

So pass otlier untold ages. But in tlie 
East "the morning h'ght is breaking, tlie dark- 
ness disappears," and the rays of advancing 
ci\'ihzation penetrate the gkiom. Savage 
wanderer and prowhng beast hear the footstep 
of tlie pioneer, and tlie known history of this 
great Xew \\'orld begins. The rude civiliza- 
tion of the copper-colored children of the for- 
est, extending undisputed from ocean to ocean, 
is gradually but surely receding \\'estward be- 
fore the older civilization of the pale faces. 
The hatchet, bow and arrow give way before 
the musket and flintlock. The wandering 
triljes are displaced by the founders of homes, 
the builders of cities and States. 

From this point the history of ^Michigan is 
identical with that of all the American Colo- 
nies. Advancing civilization devoted itself to 
certain things, and when the desired results 
were accomplished, the genius of the age 
changed and historical facts assumed a differ- 
ent character. These tides in the affairs of 
nations are our historical periods, and in the 
course of events we now find Michigan in the 
period of voyage and discovery, — 1634 to 
1760. Explorers and adventurers went every- 
where but settled nowhere. To make new dis- 
coveries was the uni\ersal passion, but only a 
few colonies were planted. 

The first white man known to have visited 
the territory now embraced in the State of Mich- 
igan was Jean Nicollet, who was in the serv- 
ice of Governor Champlain, of Canada, then 
under French control. He skirted the western 
coast of Lake Huron and explored most of the 
large rivers entering there, including, without 
a doubt, an excursion up the greatest of them 
all, the Saginaw River. His first prolonged 
stop occurred at the present site of Sault Ste. 
Marie, in the summer of 1634, where he raised 



the standard of France, and had some friendly 
interviews with the Indians, many thousands 
of whom made the shores of Lake Huron their 
hunting grounds. He visited Mackinaw, and 
retraced his steps to report the results of his 
explorations. 

He was followed by the Jesuit missiona- 
ries, Ra}-mbault and Jogues, who visited the 
Indians at Sault Ste. IMarie in 1641, performed 
suitable religious ceremonies, and returned to 
their Eastern missions. In 1660, Pere Rene 
Menard resolved to start a mission in that 
neighborhood. He spent the winter with In- 
dians near Keweenaw Bay. Accompanied by 
a single Indian guide, he started for what is 
now Portage Lake Ship Canal, and was never 
more heard of. In 1665, Pere Claude Al- 
louez started the first mission west of Lake 
Huron at La Pointe. 

In the 20 years that followed, the Jesuits 
continued their explorations with prodigious 
activity. Foremost among them was Pere 
Marquette, who thoroughly explored the west- 
ern shore of Lake Huron^ traversing the Sagi- 
naw River, thence going north, and in 1668 
he established the second mission at Sault Ste. 
Marie, which has e\'er since been inhabited by 
Americans and Europeans, and is the oldest 
permanent settlement in Michigan. The rnis- 
sion was a square fort of cedar pickets enclos- 
ing a chapel and house of logs, with a clearing, 
bearing crops of wheat, maize, peas, etc. In 
1 671, Father Marquette with a band of Huron 
Indians founded the mission of St. Ignatius, 
now St. Ignace. His grave is situated near 
the mission which he founded more than two 
centiu'ies ago. 

In order to gain a better foothold on the 
Great Lakes, and to foster and perpetuate the 
spirit of friendship in which the Ottawas and 
Hurons received the early explorers and mis- 
sionaries, M. Talon, Intendant of New France, 



AND REPRESENTATR'E CITIZENS. 



19 



sent messengers to call a great council of the 
Indians at the Saiilt in the spring of 1671. 
Fourteen tribes of the Northwest sent repre- 
sentatives to meet the French officers, who 
formally took possession of the country. 
Father Allouez was the interpreter, and after 
raising the cross and the lilies of France, he 
pronounced a glowing panegyric on his king, 
Louis NI\', pronounced the "chief of chiefs." 
Thrice was the chapel at the Sault burned to 
the ground in the next nine years, and thrice 
did Father Druilletes raise it from its ashes 
with indomitable energy. 

The missionary was followed by the fur 
trader and trapper. In his frail birch canoe 
he skirted the shores of lake and river, pene- 
trating the most .secluded spots of the wilder- 
ness, satisfying his keen relish for adventure 
and carrying on a brisk trade. 

On August 7, 1679, LaSalle, the great ex- 
plorer and missionary, sailed the "Griffin," 
the first schooner to traverse the Great Lakes, 
through the St. Clair Ri\er into Lake Huron. 
A severe storm carried him into what is now 
Saginaw Bay, and thus early were the fine 
harbor facilities of the Saginaw River discov- 
ered and appreciated. The "Griffin"' reached 
St. Ignace later that season and sailed up Lake 
Michigan to Green Bay, where the ship was 
lost in a storm. 

On July 24. 1701. Antoine de la Motte 
Cadillac founded the first European settlement 
at Detroit with 50 soldiers and 50 artisans. 
The stockade fort was named Fort Pontchar- 
train, and log houses thatched with grass fur- 
nished ample protection to the settlers. Ca- 
dillac was recalled in 1710, and the colony 
grew but slowly in the next 50 years. 

As a result of the disastrous French and 
Indian War. the district now embraced in 
Michigan was abandoned to the English, and 
in October, 1760. Maj. Robert Rogers took 



possession of Detroit witli a military force of 
200 provincial rangers. With the raising of 
the English flag o\-er this the most important 
post in the Northwest, the colonial ])eriod be- 
gins for Michigan. Mackinaw, Sault Ste. 
Marie and St. Joseph, the only other French 
posts in this territory, were occupied by the 
English in the fall of 1761. These places were 
the meagre results of a hundred years of 
French colonization. 

The English were hardly in complete pos- 
session of this new country before their neglect 
and ill-treatment aroused the dormant passions 
of the Indians. The French missionaries had 
a strong hold on the red men., and in the war 
just ended they had fought the English with 
all the ferocity of their savage natures. In 
1 76 1 the Senecas and \Vyandots conspired to 
surprise and massacre the garrison of Delroit, 
with its 2,500 inhabitants. The plot was 
barely thwarted by Captain Campbell, the com- 
mandant. 

Pontiac, chief of the Ottawas, occupying 
that part of Michigan lying between Lake St. 
Clair and Lake jNIichigan, a born leader, effect- 
ive in speech, crafty and daring in war, a 
thoughtful and far-seeing general, probably 
the greatest man his race has ever produced, 
conceived the idea of uniting all the Indian 
tribes between the Alleghanies and the Missis- 
sippi in an overwhelming and simultaneous 
attack against all the English frontier settle- 
ments, and most of the tribes in that vast coun- 
try agreed to the massacre. 

On April 27, 1763, the Indians held a great 
council of war on the Ecorces River near De- 
troit, where arrangements were made for at- 
tacking the posts early in May. On May 7th, 
Pontiac, accompanied by 60 apparently un- 
armed warriors, entered the fort at Detroit for 
a powwow with Major Gladwyn. This was 
at once one of the most dramatic and romantic 



20 



iliSTORY OF iJAY COUNTY 



incidents in llic early liistfjry of Micliig-an. 'Ilic 
love of an Ojilnva Indian maiden for a pale 
face soldier foiled Ponliac's plot, and stopped 
a massacre, which if consummated would have 
retarded for years the advance of civilization. 
7"he [nrlian maiden warned Major Gladwyn oi 
impending danger. J'ontiac found the soldiers 
all under arms and ready for action when he 
entered, and the prearranged signal for the 
beginning of the slaughter was never given. 
On May 9th the savages ])roceeded to besiege 
the fort, and several white .settlers outside of 
■the .stockade were ruthlessly murdered. On 
May 30th the Indians waylaid 23 batteaux, 
laden with stores and ammunition for the gar- 
rison, at I'oint Pelee. At daybreak the crew;; 
were massacred ; one officer and 30 men es- 
caped in a boat to Sandusky. In July, Captain 
Dalzcll succeeded in bringing needed supplies 
to the besieged fort. On July 31st, Ca])tain 
Dalzell tried ,'i foolhardy sortie; I'ontiac am- 
bushed the party (jf 250 on I'arent's Creek, 
now known as Bloody Run, killing the leader 
and 70 Englishmen and wounding 40 before 
they could regain the stockade, b'amine com- 
])elled the Indians to go hunting in October, 
and during their absence the stores in the fort 
were renewed. General Bradstreet relieved the 
fort the following spring. Fort St. Joseph was 
captured l>y Pottawatomies May 25, 1763; 
iMisign Schlosser and three men alone escaj^ed 
the massacre. On June 2, 1763, some Indians 
were playing ball near the gates of I'ort Mack- 
inaw, and the officers and soldiers, unsuspic- 
ious of danger, were looking on. 'i"he ball was 
thrown into the fort and the <lusky warriors 
rushed after it through the gates; squaws 
handed to the warriors tomahawks they had 
concealed under their blankets, and another 
bloody massacre was enacted. Lieutenant 
Jamet and C><) men were killed and 2j were 



taken prisoners, to be tortured, but I'ontiac 
eventually secured their release. 

I'ontiac captured eight out of 12 posts he 
attacked, hundreds of pale faces w^ere killed, 
but his endeavor to drive the English from the 
interior of the continent failed. In August, 
1 764, Pontiac gave up the struggle. The war- 
whoops ceased to terrorize the valleys of Mich- 
igan, the outposts of civilization were rebuilt 
and the pioneers again look their axes and 
])lows into the wilderness to create new habi- 
tations. 

The War of the Revolution caused but lit- 
tle stir in this maze of wood and sw'amp, far 
removed from the scene of actual conflict, and 
by the Treaty of Paris, in 1783, England sur- 
rendered all this vast territory to the United 
States, wdi(j took possession in July, 1796, 
which marks the beginning of our territorial 
period. 

The charter of this great new Northwest 
Territory was passed by Congress in 1787, and 
was framed with much wisdom, being the 
model of all future territorial governments 
in America. It provided for freedom of wor- 
ship, a bill of rights, inviolability of contracts, 
encouraged schools and general education, 
proclaimed all waters free to commerce, and 
the sixth and last article declared that neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude should e\er 
1)6 allowed in the new Territory. Thus at the 
very dawn of our ])olitical existence this \'ast 
region was pledged to education, freedom and 
equal rights for all. Gen. Arthur St. Clair, far- 
famed as an Indian fighter, was the first terri- 
torial Ciovernor. 

In 1802 the Lower Peninsula became part 
of the Territory of Indiana. In 1804, Con- 
gress passed an act pro\'iding for the disposal 
of public lands within the Territory, to which 
the Indian title had been extinguished, for the 




THIRD STREET BRIDGE 




MICHIGAN CENTRAL RAILROAD DEPOT, BAY CITY, E. S. 




SOLDIERS' REST MONUMENT, PINE RIDGE CEMETERY 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



23 



use of public schools. By this act was laid the 
germ for the University Fund of Michigan 
and of the Primary School Fund. 

On January 11, 1805, Congress passed the 
act creating the Territory of ]\Iichigan. "It 
was to comprise all that portion of Indiana 
Territory lying north of a line drawn east 
from the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, 
until it intersected Lake Erie, and lying east of 
a line drawn from the same southern extreme 
of Lake INIichigan to its northern extremity, 
and thence due north to the northern boundary 
of the United States." 

In June, 1805, Detroit was destroyed by 
fire, and when General Hull, the first territorial 
Governor, arrived, he found tlie people camped 
in the open fields with scanty food and cloth- 
ing. L'ndaunted by misfortune, these pioneers 
erected a new city on the old site, and Detroit 
became the territorial capital. Instigated by 
Tecumseh, another noted Indian chief, the red- 
skins again took the war-path in 181 1, but the 
battle of Tippecanoe on November 7th of that 
year quieted this region. 

Then came the second war with England. 
On July 17, 1812, the English captured Fort 
Mackinac, garrisoned by only 67 men. On 
August 16, 181 2, General Hull surrendered 
Detroit to the English without a fight, and only 
his good record in the Revolutionary War 
saved him from being shot for cowardice and 
criminal neglect of duty. General Winchester, 
advancing to the recapture of Detroit, was sur- 
prised by the English and Indians under Gen- 
eral Proctor at River Raisin, January 22, 1813, 
and compelled to surrender. The following 
night the Indians butchered all the wounded 
Americans and the helpless inhabitants of 
Frcnchtown. Commodore Perry's victory 
over the English fleet at Put-in-Bay, Septem- 
ber 10, 1813, opened the way for the recapture 
of Michigan. General Harrison's campaign 



in Canada caused Proctor to leave Detroit, to 
fight the disastrous battle of the Thames, 
where Tecumseh was killed, and for the last 
time a foreign foe was driven from the terri- 
tory. On September 29, 1813, Col. Lewis 
Cass took possession of Detroit, and on Octo- 
ber 9th of that year he was made Governor of 
Michigan Territory. 

The population of Michigan was small, less 
than 7,000, and confined to a few settlements 
on the eastern border. The great interior was 
an unknown wilderness, inhabited only by 
wandering Indians. The first steamboat on 
the Great Lakes, tlie "Walk-in-the-Water," 
reached Detroit in the summer of 1818, and 
after that Westward-bound pioneers came to 
Michigan in large numbers. Governor Cass 
made treaties with the Indians, secured the 
cession of their lands and proved to the outside 
world that the interior was something better 
than an unhealthy, impenetrable swamj), as it 
had previously been regarded. The lands were 
surveyed and opened to settlers. The building 
of public roads, and the opening of the Erie 
Canal in 1825, stimulated trade and commerce 
in the Territory, and by 1835 Michigan had 
more than 60,000 population, and clamored to 
be admitted into the Union as a State. A boun- 
dary dispute with Ohio, involving land on 
which the city of Toledo is situated, delayed 
the admission to statehood, and caused the ex- 
citing but bloodless "Toledo War." Governor 
Mason called out the Michigan militia and 
marched to Toledo, determined to prevent 
Ohio from organizing Lucas County. Con- 
gress hastened to pacify both parties, by giving 
Michigan the extensive territory comprising 
the Upper Peninsula while Ohio retained the 
disputed strip. Time has revealed the rich min- 
eral contents of that Upper Peninsula and 
Michigan has never regretted the settlement. 

The first State convention was held in De- 



24 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



troit during ]May, 1835, and in October, Ste- 
vens T. Alason was elected Governor, Edward 
Mundy, Lieutenant-Governor, and Isaac E. 
Crary, first Representative to Congress. The 
Legislature in November, 1835, elected John 
Norvell and Lucius Lyon, United States Sena- 
tors from Michigan. Finally, by act approved 
January 26, 1837, Michigan was admitted as 
the 26th State of the Union. 

Internal improvements were the crying 
needs of the hour, and one of the first acts of 
the State Legislature provided for a loan of 
$5,000,000 to construct and operate the Mich- 
igan Central and Southern railways. This 
work was begun in 1835, ^"-'t by 1846 the State 
authorities were ready to dispose of the rail- 
roads to private corporations and the two par- 
tially completed roads were sold for $2,500,- 
000. which was much less than the State had 
expended. 

Equally unsatisfactory was Michigan's ex- 
perience with "wild-cat" banking. Fifteen 
banks were doing business in Michigan, when 
admitted to statehood. Among the theories 
of the times was the notion that banking, like 
farming or storekeeping, should be free to all. 
In 1837 a law was passed allowing any 10 free- 
holders to organize a bank with capital not 
less than $50,000 nor more than $300,000. The 
provisions for the security of the public were 
loosely framed and utterly worthless. Banks 
were started by mere adventurers. When the 
bank commissioners were making their rounds 
of inspection, the 30 per cent, of specie de- 
manded by the law was carried from bank to 
bank during the night, so that on each day the 
commissioners counted the same coin, but for 
different people. Banks were located any- 
where and e\'erywhere. One was located in 
an old sawmill, and it was humorously asserted 
that a "hollow stump" to serve as a "vault" 
was all that was needefl to start a bank. Bv 



1839 most of the "wild-cat" banks were put 
out of business, but more than a million dol- 
lars worth of worthless bills had been put in 
circulation. In 1844 the general banking law 
was revised, and the State's finances placed on 
a safer basis. 

In 1837, Governor Mason appointed Rev. 
John D. Pierce, a Congregational clergyman, 
engaged in missionary work among the pio- 
neers of Central Michigan, as the first Super- 
intendent of Public Instruction, not only of 
this State, but of the entire country. "Father"' 
Pierce, as he was affectionately called, was the 
founder of the Michigan school system, and 
his plan, passed Iw act of the Legislature in 
1837, contained most of the essential features 
of our present school system, a living monu- 
ment to the wisdom and foresight of the foun- 
der of the Michigan schools. He placed the 
primary school money within the reach of 
every child in the State, and provided for the 
establishment of a State University, for the 
higher culture of advanced students. 

In 1847 ^ colony of Mormons, led by 
James J. Strang, located on Beaver Island. 
By \-igorous proselyting the colony of five 
families was increased to 2,000 persons by 
1856. In that year internal dissensions arose, 
and Strang was assassinated. Soon after, the 
colony was dispersed by an armed l.iand of 
fishermen from neighboring shores, and the 
Mormons were given only 24 hours to leave 
the State. 

From 1 70 1 the capital of the Territory 
and later of the State had been at Detroit. In 
1847 the capitalsite was selected by the Legis- 
lature at Lansing, then covered by a dense for- 
est, and 40 miles from any railroad. The selec- 
tion was generally condemned and ridiculed 
at the time, but experience has proven the selec- 
tion a happy one from every standpoint. A 
constitutional convention at Lansing in 1850 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



drew up a new constitution, providing for the 
election of all heads of departments direct by 
the people, and this was ratified by the voters. 

\\'hen Michit^an was admitted to the Un- 
ion, the Democratic party was in power, and 
the Governor was a member of that party. 
Dissatisfaction with the existing financial mis- 
management brought the ^\'hig•s into power 
under Governor William Woodbridge, 1839- 
1840. From 1 84 1 to 1854, the Democrats 
were again in power. In 1854 the Republican 
party, on the anti-slavery issue, was organized 
"under the oaks" at Jackson, and elected its 
candidates, and with the exception of two 
terms — 1883-85 and 1891-93 — when the Dem- 
ocrats prevailed on free trade issues, the Re- 
publican party has continued in control of the 
political destinies of the State. Roosevelt car- 
ried the State by over 250.000 plurality in 
1904, carrying every Republican with him. 

Michigan, under War Governor Austin 
Blair, during the four years of the Civil War, 
furnished 93,700 men. of whom 14.855 died 
in the service of the nation. Few States were 
more prompt in furnishing financial and moral 
support to the United States government in 
its hour of direst need. When the late la- 
mented President McKinley issued his call for 
125,000 volunteers to serve in the war with 
Spain in 189S, Michigan furnished five regi- 
ments of infantry, the 31st, 32nd, 33rd, 34th 
and 35th, consisting of 5,376 enlisted men, 
and 235 officers. The 33rd and 34th regi- 
ments, Michigan \'olunteer Infantry, served 
with General Shaffer's army before Santiago, 
and the Michigan Naval Reserves, detailed 
on the auxiliary cruiser "Yosemite." saw serv- 
ice at Guantanamo and San Juan de Puerto 
Rico. 

However, ^Michigan's greatest renown is in 
the arts and pursuits of peace. In 1837 the 
interior was sparsely settled, and the forests 



and prairies showed few signs of human in- 
dustry. Wagon roads were scarce and poor 
corduroy, and there was no completed rail- 
road. Postal arrangements were inconvenient, 
and correspondence was an expensive luxury. 
Cities there was none. Schools, churches and 
newspapers were few in number and crudely 
equipped. The privations of pioneer lite were 
many and severe. The passing years have 
changed the wilderness into more than a hun- 
dred thousand farms, in a high state of culti- 
vation. Eight thousand miles of good rail- 
roads afford good market and traveling facili- 
ties. The Federal census of 1900 and State 
census of 1904 show a population of nearly 
2,500,000 people, having 12,000 schools, 
10,000 churches, hundreds of modern news- 
papers, city and rural telephone and mail lines, 
and miles of new electric transit lines. Hun- 
dreds of fast and commodious passenger and 
freight boats ply the Great Lakes and the 
rivers of Michigan. 

Well-kept highways and an excellent coun- 
ty and State drain system have helped to de- 
velop and enrich the agricultural possibilities 
of the "Peninsular" State. 

Lying in the very heart of this great State, 
the annals of Bay County are inseparably 
linked with the fortunes of ^lichigan. To 
understand the recital of local- events, one must 
know and comprehend the varying historical 
periods of the State at large. Certain it is, 
that even as the vast country comprised within 
the confines of Michigan has provided many 
interesting and instructive records for the pages 
of our national history, and just as the achieve- 
ments of Michigan's favorite sons have quick- 
ened our national life, and by deeds of valor 
and self-sacrifice, by industry, enterprise and 
culture, left their imprint on the "sands of 
time," even so has Bay County contributed its 
might to the greatness and prosperity of our 



26 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



beloved commonwealth. Hence it is fitting 
and right that a review of the main events in 
the creation and government of the great 
"Peninsnlar" State, should precede the more 
detailed sketch of the "Garden Spot of Michi- 
gan," — Bay County. 

A song to thee, fair State of mine, 

Michigan, my Michigan. 
But greater song than this is thine, 

Michigan, my Michigan. 
The thunder of the inland sea, 
The whisper of the towering tree 
Unite in one grand symphony — • 

Michigan, my Michigan. 

I sing a State of all the hest — 

Michigan, my JMichigan. 
I sing a State with riches blest — 

Michigan, my Michigan. 



Thy mines unmask a hidden s'tore. 
But richer thy historic lore. 
More great the love thy builders bore — 
Michigan, my ^Michigan. 

How fair the bosom of thy lakes, 
Michigan, my Michigan. 

What melody each river makes, 
Michigan, my Michigan. 

As to thy lakes the rivers tend 

Thy exiled ones still to thee send 

Devotion that shall never end. 
Michigan, my Michigan. 

Rich in wealth that makes a State, 
Michigan, my Michigan. 

Great in the things that make men great, 
Michigan, my Michigan. 

Eager the voice that sounds thy claim 

Upon the golden roll of Fame ; 

Willing the hand that writes the name — 
Michigan, my Michigan. 




LOWER SAGINAW (now bay city; IN 1S37. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE ABORIGINAL PERIOD 

ViRGix Forests, Trackless Swamps and Lake-Bound Prairies — "0-Sauk-e-non," 
THE "Land of the Sauks" — Indian Tribes and Chieftains — Manners, Cus- 
toms AND Modes of Life of the Aborigines — The Overthrow of the Sauks by 
THE Confederated Tribes — The Indians as Found by the Pioneers — The In- 
dians OF To-Day. 

So came the auuinm, and passed, and the winter,— yet Gabriel came not; 
Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the robin and bkiebird 
Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel came not. 
But on the breath of the summer winds a rumor was wafted 
Sweeter than song of bird, or hue or odor of blossom. 
Far to the north and east, it said, in the Michigan forests, 
Gabriel had his lodge by the banks of the Saginaw River. 
And, with returning guides, that sought the lakes of the Huron, 
Saying a sad farewell, Evangeline went from the Ozark Mission. 
When over weary ways, by long and perilous marches, 
She had attained at length the depths of the Michigan forests 
Found she the hunter's lodge on the Saginaw deserted and fallen to ruin ! 
. — Adapted from Longfellow's Evangeline. 



Shade of Evangeline! A spot far-famed, 
wlience comes mysterious legends of the red 
children of the forest! Scenes of which the 
poets have sung and the artists reveled ! His- 
toric shores of lake and river, where emanate 
romantic traditions and soul-stirring reminis- 
cences! But yesterday the veiled wilderness, 
beckoning to the explorer! To-day an equally 
attractive field for the scientist and the statis- 
tician ! Wooded shores, ribtoned by placid 
streams that bring melodious greetings from 
distant inland vales, stand guard over Lake 
Huron's most favored harbor! With the vis- 
ion of a seer, the i)oet portrays the scene, and 
bemoans the tragedies of ages agone : 



This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines 
and the hemlocks. 

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct 
in the twilight. 

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, 

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their 
bosoms. 

Loud from its misty caverns, the deep-voiced neighbor- 
ing lake 

Speaks, and with rythmic lullaby soothes the lisping 
voices of the forest. 

This is the forest primeval ; but where are the 
hearts that beneath it 
Leaped like the roe. when he hears in the woodland the 
voice of the huntsman? 
****** 

Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the 
woodlands. 



28 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Darkened by shadows of earth, Imt reflecting an image 
of heaven ? 

— Adapted from Longfellow's /;:'(i)i.r,'c//)ic. 

1'nil\- this great country of ours has few- 
localities more blessed by Nature, and few in- 
deed can offer as much in folk-lore and tradi- 
tion, than the far-famed valley of the Satji- 
naw. Its very name is preonant with historic 
lore of an heroic people. The primitixe In- 
dians called it "O-Sauk-e-non," nieanins^' the 
"J.and of the Sauks." Centuries ai^o, their 
exact number none can tell with precision, the 
Sauks, a warlike and powerful tribe of In- 
dians, held undisputed sway oxer all the \ast 
and varied region comprised in what is now 
Eastern Michigan. 

Tf we are to accept the scientist's theory 
of the prehistoric glacial and rainy periods, 
and the subse(|uent ni)heavals, that gave to our 
globe its present formation, we may readily 
believe that one of the very last spots in this 
vast region to rise alxive the level of the all- 
pervading waters was this same \allcy of the 
Sauks or Saginaw. 

The earliest explorers still found much of 
the valley a seemingly endless swamp, a tangle 
of primitive forest on its margin, alive with 
wild beasts of forest and prairie, with gamy 
myriads of the deep, and the winged hosts of 
this vast lake region. It must ha\c been infi- 
nitely more impenetrable at the time the Sauk 
nation made this valley their favorite hunting 
ground, and seat of their great tribe councils. 
This \-alley is to-day a paradise of fish and 
game, and it will require no great stretch of 
im.agination to picture to oneself the ideal liv- 
ing conditions presented here to the simplc- 
liearled children of the wilderness. Wood for 
the camp-fire, water clear as crystal for the 
family cooking in their primitive earthern and 
stone vessels, fish and game for the mere sport 
of the hunter, and, last but not least, a safe re- 



treat in times of trouble and defeat. For who 
but the nati\-e child of these vast forests would 
be able to thread its trackless wastes and 
trei'.cherous river bottoms with safety and with 
disp.itch ? And the warlike Sauks no doubt 
knew the defensive value of river fords and 
s;tnd ridge, of wood and plain. 'l"he Romans 
of the Old World sallied forth from their 
strong city to conquer the world, confident of 
a safe retreat in times of disaster and tempo- 
r;iry defeat, and of quite a similar character 
are the annals of these earliest known inhabi- 
tants of this gem of the Great Lakes. Certain 
it is that the Sauks held a foremost place 
among the Indians of their day. Indian tra- 
ditions are replete with the recital of their war- 
like deeds, e\-en centuries after the tril)e was 
wiped from the face of the earth by a combi- 
nation of weaker tribes inhabiting other por- 
tions of the lake regions, who disliked the 
domination of the Sauks, and probablv cov- 
eted their rich hunting grounds. Flardlv half 
a century has passed, since this beautiful val- 
ley was indeed a happy hunting ground. lUif- 
falo, elk, moose and deer roamed at will 
through the prairie-bound forests. Black and 
brown bears, wolves, panthers, wild cats and 
other wild beasts infested the wilderness, fero- 
cious foes of almost equally ferocious aborig- 
ines. E\'en to this day most of these animals 
are to be found in the thinly settled portions 
of this section of Michigan. What wonder 
tlien, that the Sauks waxed strong, and that 
with all the fiery instincts of their savage souls 
they enjoyed a fight, and spoiled for lust of 
blood and conquest ! 

The earliest annals of Bay County tell of 
the Indian traditions of the Sauks, as they 
were handed down from generation to genera- 
tion, an inspiration for young warriors, and a 
song of victory for the sages of the tribes, who 
on the verv site of Greater Bay Citv extermi- 



AND REPRESENTATI\-E CITIZEXS. 



nated, in a desperate two-days Ijattle, the last 
remnants of the once powerful trihe of Sauks. 
Jean Nicollet, believed to be the first white 
man to have visited the harbor of what is now 
Bay City, in his explorations of the western 
and northern shores of Lake Huron in 1634 
speaks of the land of the Sauks in his official 
report to Go\-ernnr Champlain of New I'rance. 
He was hospitably received by the Indians, 
after interpreters he had with him had over- 
come their fears, for he was the first white 
man most of them had seen. The next au- 
thentic report of the land of the Sauks is found 
in the annals of Pere Marquette and Pere 
Dablon, who about 1668 were exploring the 
western shore of Lake Huron, anil the latter 
tells of a council with the natives on a great 
river, undoubtedly the Saginaw, which for a 
time was thought to be connected with the 
Mississippi River. This river flowed through 
the center of the land of the Sauks, which is 
described as extending from the western shore 
of Lake Huron to the eastern shore of Lake 
Michigan, and from Mackinaw in the north 
to the land of the Shiawassees in the south. 
The Indians then inhabiting this vast region 
were easily won over by the earnest and de- 
voted missionaries. 

Then the Black-Robe chief, the Prophet, 
Told his message to the people, 
Told the purport of his mission. 

The Song of Hiawatha. 

One must have read that immortal epic 
poem of Longfellow, to appreciate the beauti- 
ful story of the earliest meetings of the pale 
faces and red men on tlie shores of the Great 
Lakes, to picture in one's mind the weird scene 
of an Indian camp-fire in the wilderness, the 
wigwams of the chiefs, the shore lined with 
birch canoes, so necessary for the inhabitants 
of these regions, the solemn warriors smoking 



the pipe of peace with the strangers they called 
"brtjthers," the eloquent address of Father 
Maniuette, with a world-redeeming message, 
alas, so little understood by these children of 
the forest, whose one all-absorbing command- 
ment for ages had been the old Hebraic dic- 
tum : "An eye for .\N eye; and a tooth 
FOR ,\ TOOTH." What a pity that the spirit 
of Pere Marquette did not always pervade the 
intercourse of the two races in these fair re- 
gions! 

.As no i)ermanent mission was established 
south of Mackinaw, we can know but little 
that is authentic of these first meetings here, 
of Indians and explorers or missionaries. Un- 
doubtedly the cross and lilies of France were 
duly raised over this rich valley, as they were 
all along the shores of Lake Huron. It was 
rare indeed in the rush of events of the closing 
years of the 19th century that a triljute was 
paid to the memory of the devoted men who 
opened to civilization wide reaches of fertile 
but unknown regions. Such a worthy tribute 
has been paid to the peer of all these e.xplorers 
of the trackless Northwest, in naming one of 
the great highways of commerce, that trav- 
erse the vast region he was the first to really 
explore, the Pere Marquette Railroad, in 
honor of Father Marquette. 

Almost two centuries had elapsed since the 
discovery of this country ere the first white 
explorers penetrated to this secluded spot, and 
even then they were satisfied with tracing the 
general courses of rivers and the trend of the 
coasts of the Great Lakes. This done, there 
comes another long period, during which the 
copper-colored children of the woods ruled 
supreme over their beloved hunting grounds. 
And it is the recital of their primitive e.xist- 
ence, their feuds and wars, their hunts and ex- 
peditions, their religion and traditions, that 
lend to the annals of Bay County their roman- 



30 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



tic interest. Residents of this county and 
State annually travel thousands of miles to 
visit some romantic spot of the Old World and 
an earlier civilization. Few realize the wealth 
of legendary and historic narratives, that find 
their scenes on the shores of Saginaw bay and 
river. 

This chapter on the Indians who once in- 
habited these hunting grounds would not be 
complete without a passing reference to the 
race in general. Columbus thought he had 
discovered the Indies of Asia when he sailed 
to the West Indies in 1492, hence the inhabi- 
tants of the New World were called "In- 
dians." Diligent research on the history and 
migrations of the primitive races of the world 
has failed to reveal the origin of this copper- 
colored race. To the red man of this Western 
Continent the chase was everything, and the 
illimitable hunting grounds, forest and prai- 
rie and stream, were the Indian's earthly par- 
adise and the type of his heavenly home here- 
after. 

The American aborigines belonged to sev- 
eral distinct families or nations, and the tribe 
of Hurons which inhabited Michigan at the 
time of Father Marquette's exploration be- 
longed to the Algonquin nation, which at that 
time was estimated to number 250,000 souls. 
They were nomadic in their habits, roaming 
from one hunting ground to another, accord- 
ing to the exigencies of fishing and the chase. 
Agriculture was but little esteemed. The Al- 
gonquins were divided into many subordinate 
tribes, each having its local name, dialect and 
traditions. 

Of all the Indian nations, the Algonquins 
suffered most from contact with the white 
men. Wasting diseases destroyed whole 
tribes, and are to-day taking off the pitiable 
remnants of a once proud and powerful race. 
Before the aggressive spirit of the pale faces, 



before his fiery rum and his destructive weap- 
ons, the race has withered to a shadow, and 
only a few thousand remain to rehearse the 
story of their ancestors. 

Personal independence, a willfulness of ac- 
tion and freedom from all restraint, were their 
most striking characteristics, as their local tra- 
ditions clearly prove. The authority of the 
chief extended no further than to be foremost 
in battle and most cunning in savage strategy. 
No man gave him his authority, and no man 
tookitawa3^ In the solemn debates of the coun- 
cil, where the red orators pronounced wild har- 
angues to groups of motionless listeners, only 
questions of expediency were decided. The 
painted sachems never thought of imposing 
on the unwilling minority the decision which 
had Ijcen reached in council. 

War was the all-absorbing passion of the 
red men. Revenge was considered the noblest 
of virtues, and hence all their interminable 
wars were undertaken to redress some griev- 
ance, real or imaginary, and never for con- 
quest. The fight in the open, like the combats 
of the legions of the Old World, was un- 
known in Indian warfare. Their military 
strategy consisted of cunning and treachery, 
and their fighting was limited to surprise, am- 
buscade, and massacre. The vanquished sel- 
dom asked for mercy and never received it. 
Barbarous captivity, ransom, or burning at the 
stake were the lot of prisoners captured in 
war, and the diabolical ferocity of the savage 
warrior's nature invented ever new tortures. 

Confederations formed at times among the 
tribes, when some emergencies demanded 
them, seldom out!i\-ed the great sachems aaIio 
had formed them. In times of peace the red 
man was unsocial, solitary, a gloomy spirit 
of the woods. The wide forest was to him 
better than his wigwam, and his wigwam bet- 
ter than the villap:e. The Indian woman was 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



31 



a degraded creature, a drudge, the beast of 
burden for the lodge, and the social principle 
was correspondingly low. In matters of re- 
Hgion, the Indians were a superstitious race, 
but seldom idolaters. They believed in a 
Great Spirit, everywhere present, ruling the 
elements, showing favor to the brave and obe- 
dient and punishing the sinful. They called 
Him the Great Alanitou. They worshiped, 
but never built any temples. They also believed 
in many sulxjrdinate spirits, some evil and 
some good, and their medicine men after fast- 
ing and prayer made revelations of this spirit 
world. The religious ceremonies of the Hu- 
rons were performed with great earnestness 
and solemn formality, and one of their favor- 
ite meeting grounds for centuries was on the 
western bank of the Saginaw River, about 
three miles from its mouth. 

In the matter of arts the Indians were bar- 
barians. Their houses were wigwams or 
hovels. Some poles set up in a circle, con- 
verging at the top, covered with skins and the 
branches of trees, lined and sometimes floored 
with mats made by the women, a fire in the 
center, a low opening opposite a point from 
which the wind blew — such was the aborig- 
inal abode of our Indians, even as late as 
1865, when one of the last great tribal coun- 
cils was held on the outskirts of what was 
then the village of Wenona. 

Indian utensils were few, rude and primi- 
tive. Poorly fashioned earthern ])ots, bags 
and pouches for carrying provisions, stone 
hammers for pounding parched corn, were the 
stock and store. A copper kettle was a price- 
less treasure. The warrior's chief implement 
was his hatchet of copper or stone, which he al- 
ways carried. This hatchet was rarely free 
from the stain of blood. His bow and stone- 
capped arrow proved ample weapons for of- 
fense and defense. Old settlers still relate how 



some famous chiefs in this very valley shot an 
arrow capped with iron clear through a full 
grown deer, at a distance of 200 yards. 

The Indian's clothing was a blanket thrown 
loosely over his shoulders, and fastened about 
the middle with leather thongs. The material 
for his moccasins and leggings was stripped 
from the red buck, elk or buffalo. Fangs of 
rattlesnakes, claAvs of hawks, feathers of eagles, 
bones of animals, and even the scalps of ene- 
mies he killed, were hung alx)ut his person. He 
painted his face and body, especially when pre- 
paring for the war-dance, with all manner of 
fantastic and glaring colors. 

Indian writing consisted only of rinaint 
hieroglyphics rudely scratched on the face of 
rocks or cut in the bark of trees. Pontiac, a 
great chief of this region, and thought by many 
to ha\e been the greatest man his race ever pro- 
duced, was the only leader who ever had a com- 
missary department among the tribes, with a 
system of making requisitions, by rudely draw- 
ing the article wanted upon a piece of hide, with 
his totem, the beaver, affixed. This requisi- 
tion usually brought the desired article. But 
the artistic sense of the savage could rise no 
higher than a coarse necessity compelled the 
flight. 

The dialects of the North American races 
have a resemblance among themselves, but 
have no analogy with the languages of other 
nations, unless it be with the monosyllables of 
the nomadic tribes of Central Asia. The In- 
dian tongue had but few words, and abstract 
ideas rarely found expression. The Hurons of 
this vicinity had no word for "hunting," but 
one word signified "to-kill-a-deer-with-an- 
arrow 1" There was no word for brother, but 
one word signified "elder brother" or "younger 
brother." 

The Hurons were light and tall in build, 
agile, lean and swift of foot. Eyes, jet black 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and sunken ; hair, black and straight ; beard, 
black and scant ; skin of a copper-colored, red- 
dish-black or cinnamon hue ; high cheek bones ; 
forehead and skull variable in shape and pro- 
portions; hands and feet small; tody lithe but 
not strong; expression of the features more 
often sinister, than dig'nified or noble. Such 
Avas the Indian as the early settlers found him 
in these parts. 

The Indian dance was a passion with them, 
but it was not the social dance of civilized na- 
tions, but rather the dance of ceremony, the 
dance of religion and of war. Sometimes the 
warriors danced alone, but frequently the 
women were accorded their one privilege, when 
they too would join the mystic circle, swinging 
round and round, chanting the weird, monoto- 
nous songs of their tribe. 

The amusements of these children of the 
forest consisted of feats of daring, excellence 
in feats of strength, such as wrestling, shooting 
at a mark, running, jumping, racing in their 
swift canoes, playing at ball, and some gam- 
bling games with stones resembling dice, on 
which the passionate warrior would often haz- 
ard his entire possessions. 

The pipe was the warrior's inseparable com- 
panion. The pioneers in these parts often saw 
them sitting and smoking for hours, apparently 
lost in a dream under the fascinating influence 
of their pipes. No race on earth has ever been 
so debased by strong drink. 

The fire-water of the pale faces has done 
more to exterminate the Indians than all other 
agencies ! The amount .of spirits and liquor 
Poor Lo would absorb has only been limited 
by tlie amount he could secure. Such is a 
rough sketch of the aboriginal red man, who 
WAS rather than is ! 

That this was once one of the most thickly 
])opulated hunting grounds of the aborigines, 
is still attested, not merely by the traditions of 



Bay County's pioneers, but also by the settle- 
ments of remnants of once powerful tribes at 
Indiantown, near Kawkawlin, at Saganing, 
near Pinconning, and at Ouanicassee, just 
across our county's eastern border. Such is 
the logic of events that right or wrong, the 
weaker race has withered before the onward 
march of the Saxons. By the beloved ri\-ers 
and in the solitude of the great forests the rest- 
less sons of the West will soon be seen no 
more! One by one they bid farewell to the 
hunting grounds of their ancestors. Let our 
people do what in their power lies to brighten 
the days still remaining of earth to the survi- 
vors of the primitive race that once called this 
vast continent their very own. To-day little 
more than their names remain on lake and hill 
and stream, and even these in the rush of events 
we pass unnoticed by! 

And yet what a wealth of anecdote and ro- 
mance gather about the earliest inhabitants of 
this valley. A few of these personal reminis- 
cences will be better understood and appreci- 
ated, since we have reviewed Indian character, 
life and habits. 

\\'hat is known to-day of the great tribe 
of the Sauks, wdio have given the title to Sagi- 
naw bay, river and valley, is derived entirely 
from the traditions handed down among the 
Indians of this part of the State from genera- 
tion to generation. About 1835 there lived in 
an Indian shack on the bay shore, on the site 
of what is now Tobico, an old Chippewa chief, 
named Put-ta-gua-sa-mine, over whose battle- 
scarred head had passed more than 100 years — 
a wrinkled but acti\e human oak in the prime- 
val wilderness. He was as active as the aver- 
age man is at 50, and his faculties were un- 
dimmed. Since early youth he had been the 
historian of his tribe. Some 80 years before, 
his grandfather had told him the traditional 
story of his tribe, and the extermination of 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



33 



their bitterest foes, the Sauks. formed the most 
stirring chapter of his nation's legends. He had 
repeated it a thousand times around their camp- 
fires, tepees and councils, lest the braves of the 
nation should forget the glorious deeds of their 
ancestors, and their traditions and history be 
lost forever. He had appointed Nau-qua-chic- 
a-me as his successor, and verified his historic 
tales by the other old Indians of his tribe living 
in that vicinity. The late Judge Albert Miller, 
\\'illiam R. McCormick, James Eraser, John 
Riley. Joseph Trombley, his brother IMedor 
Trombley, two uncles of theirs, — Cassette 
Trombley and Leon Trombley, — James M. 
McCormick, Benjamin Cushway, and others of 
the early pioneers, often heard the Indian's re- 
cital, and no record of this vicinity would be 
complete without this, the most ghastly inci- 
dent of the aborigines' traditions. The old 
warrior could repeat the tale a hundred times 
and not vary a hairl)readth in his recital. 

The Sauks' main village lay on the ridge 
extending along the west bank of the river for 
about five miles from the bay. \\'hile the In- 
<lians roamed at will over all the Southern Pen- 
insula of Michigan, still their favorite hunting 
ground was in this valley. Here it was they 
assembled for their tribe councils, their sun- 
dances, their feasts and their games. This vil- 
lage was nc\cr (piite deserted. The old and in- 
firm, the sick and wounded invariably came 
and lived here, for it offered every facility for 
their simple lives. Sometimes defeated in bat- 
tle against distant tribes, the Sauks invariably 
rallied to the defense of this valley, and no foe 
ever passed its outer defenses and lived. Erom 
this stronghold they sallied forth to fight their 
Chippewa neighbors on the north, the Potta- 
watomies of Southern Michigan, and they even 
carried war against the Ottawas in Canada, 
until those troubled tribes could bear their ag- 
gressions no longer. 



Some three centuries ago these three tribes 
called in the Menominees and Dakotahs of the 
West, and parts of the Si.x Nations of New York 
somewhere near where Port Huron is now lo- 
cated, and it was decided to destroy the Sauks 
and make their lands a general hunting ground 
for all these tribes. 

Early the following spring the warriors of 
these several tribes assembled at Mackinaw, 
while another force was gathered on the east- 
ern shore of Lake St. Clair. When all was in 
readiness, the Mackinaw confederates started 
down Lake Huron in bark canoes, the most im- 
posing flotilla undoubtedly that sailed these 
lakes until Commodore Perry met and van- 
quished the English fleet at Put-in-Bay nearly 
three centuries later, for it was rare indeed 
that these feudal tribes ever acted together. • 

.Apparently the Sauks knew nothing of the 
conspiracy, and with the breaking of a hard 
winter they had scattered to their several 
haunts, the largest number apparently remain- 
ing in this valley. Their enemies, true to their 
savage natures, planned to surprise this village. 
The fleet of canoes loaded with the dusky war- 
riors stole along the west shore of Saginaw 
Bay, lay concealed in the wilderness near To- 
bico during the day and the ne.xt night divided 
to attack both sides of the Saginaw River at 
davbreak. 

The Sauks slept in fancied security, little 
dreaming what a horrible death awaited them. 
With the first streak of gray across the dense 
forest, the savage horde broke from the woods 
near where the lower wards of the West Side 
are now located, and began a ruthless massacre. 
The Sauks living further up stream, hearing 
the whoops of the enemy, tried vainly to stop 
the latter's victorious rush. Finding them- 
selves outnumbered, they slowly retreated, 
fighting every foot of the way, and finally 
sought refuge on the East Sitle, where the 



34 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



upper wards of Bay City now stretch along the 
river. 

This was just what their wily enemies had 
foreseen, for now the second force of confeder- 
ates canie rushing out of the forest that 
stretched from the bay for miles and miles to 
the south. On the ridge south of Lafayette 
avenue, the Sauks made a desperate stand, and 
a number of mounds have been uncovered 
where skulls and skeletons, thrown indiscrimi- 
nately together, attest that hundreds fought 
and died here, and were buried in common 
graves. 

Those that survived this slaughter retreated 
to the little island south of Stone Island, which 
they quickly fortified. The attacking force had 
left their canoes on the bay shore, but even the 
elements conspired against the doomed tribe of 
Sauks. A cold wave, so peculiar to this lake 
region, swept down from the nortli that night, 
covering the narrow arm of the river with ice, 
over which at the break of another day the mer- 
ciless enemy charged, and completed the mas- 
sacre. For ages after, numberless skulls lay 
scattered and buried on this fateful spot, which 
has ever since been called Skull Island. The 
tradition of the Chippewas recounts that 12 of 
the bravest Sauks, with their families, were 
saved from this final slaughter, as trophies of 
the great victory. 

The force on the St. Clair now advanced up 
the Shiawassee and Flint rivers, where they 
joined forces with the victorious warriors from 
the Saginaw valley, and the other tribes of the 
Sauk nation were hunted to their death. On 
the Cass. Tittabawassee, Shiawassee and Flint 
rivers, the same bloody drama was renewed. 
Great battles were fought near the sites of the 
present cities of Flint and Flushing, where to 
this day mass graves of warriors are unearthed. 
The crushed skulls, the mark of the deadly tom- 
ahawk, arrow and battle-axe, show plainly that 



the Ijloody traditions of these Indians are but 
too well founded. 

A few escaped the massacre on the Sagi- 
naw, and the scattered tribes were undoubtedly 
warned on their more southern hunting 
grounds. But the confederates were all about 
them, and escape was impossible. Realizing 
that death was inevitable, the Sauks showed 
that at least they could die bravely, and some of 
the weird war-chants of the Indians of the lake 
region still recite the heroic deeds of the 
doomed race. W'arriors, women and even chil- 
dren joined in the fight, and while their race 
was practically exterminated in the course of 
several weeks of fighting, the fugitives being 
hunted d(5wn like wild beasts by their infuri- 
ated enemies, still the victory was dearly 
bought. 

When the man hunt through Lower ]\Iichi- 
gan had been completed and the confederates 
had assembled in council on the very site of 
Bay City, they had wearied of the slaughter, 
and the captives, kept for torture more terri- 
ble than any death in battle, were spared, and 
by mutual agreement sent west of the Missis- 
sippi, where the Sioux tribes took them under 
their protection in recognition of their heroic 
fight in the face of overwhelming odds. The 
rich hunting and fishing grounds, the main 
cause of the massacre, were thrown open for 
the common use of the tribes that had taken 
part in the expedition. 

So passed the Sauks from the valley and 
the territory they loved so well. 

In 1823, Major Long, of the United States 
Army, found the survivors of the Sauks on the 
St. Peters River, evidently descendants of the 
12 families that were banished to the far West. 
In his official report, regarding their original 
haunts, he says, that these Sauks had a tradi- 
tion that they did not always live in those parts, 
but that their ancestors lived on Saginaw Bay 



Ii 





TRINITY PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 
Bay City. E. S. 







MADISON AVENUE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH and PARSONAGE, 

Bay City, E. S. 





S. JAMES' CATHOLIC CHURCH and PAROCHIAL RKSIDENCE, 
Bay City, E. S. 




WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN 

CHURCH, 

Bav Citv, W. S. 




FIRST METHODIST EPISCOPAL 

CHURCH, 

Bay City, W. S. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



37 



and Lake Huron, where tlie Great Spirit liad 
created them, and given them wonderful liunt- 
ing grounds until their trihe sinned against 
Manitou the Great, and were by the evil spirits 
driven from their happy lumting grounds. 

In their far Western reservation, the In- 
dian tril)e wliicli gave its name to the great 
hay. river and valley, in the very heart of ■Mich- 
igan, has dwindled to a mere shadow, and. ac- 
cording to the last report of the Indian com- 
missioner, will soon he totally extinct. 

Their conquerors have fared but little bet- 
ter, and their dearly tought victory was almost 
barren of results. For hardly had the allied 
Indian tribes decided to keep the conquered ter- 
ritory along the shores of the Saginaw as a 
common hunting ground, before the supersti- 
tious Indian found that the spirits of the 
slaughtered Sauks haunted the valley, for 
many Indians who came to hunt and fish in 
these parts were never more heard of. Quite 
likely a few Sauks escaped the massacre, too 
few for open war, and that they took bloody 
revenge on all their enemies who came to the 
shores of Saginaw Bay. The neighboring 
creeks, the trackless forest and the wide reaches 
(if the bay ofifered a safe shelter to the fugitives 
and. knowing the country better than the wan- 
dering hunters, the skulking Sauks had the ad- 
vantage over much superior numbers in that 
kind of savage warfare. 

As late as 1840. a Chijjpcwa chief named 
Ton-dog-a-ne told William R, McCnrmick and 
other visiting traders, that he had himself killed 
a Sauk in an acidental meeting of hunting par- 
ties, while he was still quite young. I'ifty j'ears 
ago the Indians frequently ceased hunting, be- 
cause they had seen a place in the woods where 
the spirit of a Sauk had built his camp-fire and 
slept. The early settlers laughed at the In- 
dians' superstititious fears, but nothing could 
induce theiu to enter the wcods at such a tiiuc. 



Another Indian tradition handed down by 
the Chippewa chief, Wa-sha-be-non, who lived 
to be nearly 100 years old, and who had heard 
it from his grandfather, told how this haunted 
hunting ground had been made a sort of penal 
colony to which every Indian who com- 
mitted a criine under the Indian's crude 
code of laws was banished or to which 
he fled, rather than face the tortures 
and punishment inflicted by his tribe. To 
the average Indian this was the worst puiu'sh- 
ment that could be inflicted, but the criminal 
colony undoubtedly soon found that it was not 
at all a bad place to camp, to hunt and to fish, 
for the colony increased and thrived despite 
the avenging spirits said to be hovering over 
"O-Sauk-e-non," the doomed "Land of the 
Sauks." The mixing of warriors from many 
tribes brought with it in time a mixed Indian 
dialect, in which the language of the Chippe- 
was, as the most numerous, predominated. 

The picturesque and romantic interest in 
this valley center about these red children of 
the forest, and their contact with the earliest 
white trappers, traders and settlers, and innum- 
erable stories are told by these pioneers, a few 
of which will round out this chapter on the 
aI)origines, who once owned and lorded it over 
this valley. 

The Hurons, to which race all of the tribes 
living about the Great Lakes belonged, were 
not very highly esteemed by the Indians of the 
East, the Six Nations. The French traveler and 
explorer, De Toc(|ucvi]lc, aljout the year 1830, 
started for the Wild West of those early days, 
the heart of IMichigan, and sought the services 
of an Indian guide at Buffalo. An old Mohawk 
warrior cautioned biiu to beware of the native 
Indians of Michigan, and particularly in the 
haunted regions of "O-Sauk-e-non."' The 
jjroud Mohawk called them a thievish race, 
vagatonds and skulkers, whom none could 



38 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



trust, and the members of the party were so 
impressed with his recital of their treacherous 
deeds in the War of the Revohition and W^ar 
of i8iJ. tliat an Ottawa warrior from Canada 
guided the party to the banks of Saginaw Bay, 
from where the savant made his scientific and 
geographical observations. He did not find 
the Indians of this region as bad as pictured. 
He 2a\e them credit for many virtues which 
the pale faces would do well to imitate, among 
them l)eing strict honesty. He found this vir- 
tue among all the tribes of the West, where 
they were not corrupted by intercourse with 
the pale faces. He found no bolts or bars in 
their habitations, and cites many instances of 
their integrity. An Indian was given a hand- 
ful of tobacco, and in his tepee found a quarter 
of a dollar among the leaves. Early next 
morning he hurried to the donor and handed 
back the money. Being told that inasmuch as 
it had been given to him, he might as well have 
kept it. the Indian pointed to his breast and 
said : "I got a good man and a bad man here ; 
the good man say it is not mine, and I must re- 
turn it ; the bad man say, he gave it to you and 
it is your own now ; the good man say, that 
is not right, the tobacco is yours, but not the 
money ; the bad man say, ne\'er mind, you got 
the money, go buy some drink ; the good man 
say, you must not do so, and I don't know what 
to do, and think to sleep over it, but the good 
man and the bad man talk all night and trouble 
me much ; so now I bring the money back, and 
feel \ery. very good again." Of the Chip- 
pewa chief, Put-ta-gua-sa-mine. he wrote the 
following : "At a visit to his shack on the 
great bay of Saginaw, while the pipe of peace 
was going the rounds, I told him that I was 
pleased he did not drink the firewater of the 
white men, but that it grieved me to find his 
people drank so much of it. The Indian sage 
replied promptly : 'Ah, Uh,' with a suggestive 



gesture, 'we Indians use a great deal of whis- 
key, but WE do not m.\ke it.' " This was a 
very pert Indian version of the scripture quo- 
tation : "He that delivereth it unto thee hath 
the greater sin." 

The home relations of the red men have 
e\'er been the subject of interesting study, and 
the savants who early visited these parts gave 
vastly different views of the life of the aborig- 
ines during the first 30 years of the 19th cen- 
tury. Polygamy was not uncommon among 
the Hurons, the more influential chiefs usually 
having several w'ives. A missionary named 
Catlin made a study of the Indian tribes of 
Michigan, and he found that, like the trilies of 
the East, the drudgery of the family devolved 
entirely on the women. The women carried 
the baggage on the marcii, and erected the tepee 
\\hen a camping ground was reached. The 
women gathered the fuel, started the camp-fire, 
cooked the simple meal and patiently served 
the lord of the household, who disdained all 
work, as fit only for pale faces and women. 
Even the little patch of corn was cultivated by 
the women. The warriors followed the chase 
or tiie war-path, leaving all domestic and agri- 
cultural cares to the women. For untold ages 
this had been the life of the red men, and when 
the white men invaded their hunting grounds, 
and compelled the Indian to till the ground, 
when he ceased to be a hunter and became a 
farmer, his whole existence was changed, and 
many people attribute the gradual extinction of 
the Indians to a pining away of the race for the 
wild and unfettered hunter's life of their an- 
cestors. 

\\'hilc the Indian women were shown but 
little tenderness by the stoical warriors, and 
their miserable and degraded life was one in- 
cessant round of labor and care, there were 
man}- instances of touching devotion among the 
Hurons. A story is told of a dying Indian 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



39 



woman. \\ho expressed a great desire for a 
mess of com. A famine in these parts made 
the gratification of her wish seemingly impossi- 
l)le, but her devoted husband lost no time. 
Through the almost untrodden wilderness he 
hurried to the settlement at Detroit, more 
than loo miles away, told his troubles to 
a German pioneer, secured enough corn to fill 
his lilanket, and immediately started back home 
with his load. The last few days of earth 
for his stricken squaw were cheered by 
the food secured under such trying circum- 
stances. 

While the pioneers found much that was 
laudable, and still more that was ridiculous and 
condemnable in the daily life of the red men. 
the children of the forest also found much sub- 
ject for hilarity on the other side. In a coun- 
cil of the early pioneers, government agents. 
surveyors and trappers, with the Chippewas on 
the shore of Saginaw Bay, an aged chief re- 
minded the white men that the Indians had 
not only a surer way of getting a wife than the 
pale faces, but that an Indian was also more 
certain of getting one eventually to his liking. 
Through a French interpreter his argument 
was given something like this: "White man 
court and court, maybe one whole year, maybe 
two year, before he marry. \\'ell. maybe he 
get good wife, maybe no! ]\Iaybe her very 
cross, scold so soon as he wake in the morn- 
ing, scold all day, scold all night! .\11 the same 
he must keep her! White man's law say he 
must keep her! Well, how do Indians do? In- 
dian sees good, industrious squaw, he goes to 
her. places two forefingers close beside each 
other, make two look like one, look squaw 
straight in face, see her smile, and take her 
home ! No danger her be cross, no, no ! Squaw 
knows he throw her away if she be cross, and 
take another ! Squaw love to eat meat. No hus- 
band, no meat ! Squaw do everything to please 



husband, big chief brings plenty of meat, and 
we be happy always!" 

The Indians never chastised their children, 
thinking that it would damp their spirits, check 
their love of independence, and cool their mar- 
tial ardor, all of which the parents wished to 
encourage. Reason will guide our children, 
when they come to the use of it, argued the wise 
men of the tribe, and before that their faults 
cannot be \ery great. Boys were given uncon- 
trolled freedom. Respect for their father and 
old age were alone inculcated into their young 
hearts. Among their own it was a great crime 
to steal or tell a lie, but to an enemy, and every 
pale face was long treated as a hereditary en- 
emy, it was right to do so, for they must be 
injured wherever possible. The warriors en- 
deavored by example to train the youth to dili- 
gence in hunting and fishing, and to animate 
them with patience, courage and fortitude in 
war, as well as to inspire them with contempt 
of danger and pain and to court death, which 
among the Hurons were qualities alone worth 
possessing. \\'lien a famous chief became too 
old to indulge in the chase, or to go on the 
war-path, he devoted his time to exhorting the 
youths of his trilje. In glowing phrases he 
would recount the great deeds of their tribe. 
Daily the children gathered about these aged 
chiefs among the tepees on the Saginaw, and 
DeTocqueville recites how they urged the 
young men to lie brave and cunning in war. and 
to defend their hunting grounds against all en- 
croachments. "Never suft'er your squaws or 
little ones to want, and at all times protect them 
from insult and from danger. Respect the 
aged. Never betray a friend. Be revenged 
on your enemies. Drink not the poisonous 
strong water of the i)ale faces, for it is sent by 
the bad spirit to destroy our race." Alas ! Too 
few heeded this last appeal, and pathetically it 
is written : 



40 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



For plagues do spread, and funeral fires increase, 
None can the wrath of the Alanitou the Great appease 
Since to the poisoned waters of the paleface, all are 
slaves ! 

The sage ciiief counseled them to fear not 
death, for none but cowartls really die. "The 
brave warrior goes to the happy hunting" 
grounds, the coward becomes a tortured spirit 
before Manitou the Great. Love and adore 
the Good Spirit, who made us all. who supplies 
our hunting grounds, and keeps all alive." Then 
with hands and e^'es uplifted toward heaven, 
he would recount his deeds in war and peace, 
and thank the Great Spirit for keeping him so 
long in health and strength. "Yet like a de- 
cayed prairie tree do I now stand alone among 
you. The friends of my youth, the compan- 
ions of my sports, my toils and my dangers, 
rest their heads on the bosom of our mother 
earth. My sun is fast setting behind the West- 
ern hills, and I feel it will soon be night with 
me. But you will soon be men, then must you 
prove worthy of your forefathers!" 

While the Ottawas and other tribes wor- 
shipped the sun, the Hurons were content to 
erect at odd intervals in their midst some hid- 
eous idol, which they adored as their talisman, 
until seme defeat in war, a famine or other 
mishap to the tribe, appeared to indicate that 
the potency of their little ISIanitou was no 
longer a saving grace. About 1840 some mis- 
sionaries held a church service on the west 
shore of the Saginaw River, two miles from 
its mouth. Trappers, hunters, fishermen and 
traders came together for miles around to hear 
once again a service so rare in the wilderness. 
A few Huron Indians stood outside of the cir- 
cle of worshipers, speculating on the trend of 
the strange festival before them. They pre- 
sumed the white men were asking for some- 
thing, and the guileless children of the forest 
wondered if they were getting their loudly ex- 



pressed wishes fulfilled by their IManitou. As 
the missionaries exhorted for an hour, and 
more, the Hurons concluded they were not get- 
ting much encouragement from on high. They 
marveled at the perseverance and elocjuence 
with which this appeal to Manitou was pressed. 
When the pale faces joined in singing a plain- 
tive hymn, one savage was heard remarking 
to the other : "Hear them now in despair, cry- 
ing with all their might !" 

A good story is told of the first territorial 
Governor — Stevens T. INIason. A number of 
workingmen were erecting a warehouse for the 
Governor on a cold fall day, and among the 
idlers looking on was a Huron warrior, in the 
scanty attire of his tribe. "Hark ye, friend," 
said the Governor to the brave, "why don't you 
work like these men, and get decent clothes to 
cover you?" "Why you no work. Governor?" 
replied the Huron. "I work with my head," 
said the Governor, "and therefore need not 
work with my hands. You go kill a deer for 
me, and I will give you a shilling." The Indian 
ere long brought the carcass of a good-sized 
buck. The Governor asked him why he did 
not skin it? "Deer am dead, give me my shill- 
ing. Governor. Give me another shilling and 
I will skin it for you," which was done, l>ut the 
Governor plotted to get even. Some time after^ 
the Governor wanted a message taken to the 
Governor at Toledo, and he hired the same 
Indian to deliver it, I)ut as the Indian demanded 
an exhorbitant messenger fee. Mason asked 
the brother official to chastise the red rascal. 
On the way this Indian met one of Governor 
Mason's regular employees, and by claiming 
that the Governor told him to give the letter 
to the Governor's old trusty, the latter was in- 
duced to deliver the letter to the Toledo dis- 
ciplinarian, and got soundly thrashed for his 
pains. Governor Mason was very wrathy 
when he heard his trusty's report, but the sav- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



41 



age had vanished into the interior. At a coun- 
cil held in 1836, preparatory to the ceding of 
40,000 acres of the Chippewas' reserve to the 
United States, Governor Alason found Chief 
Ma-sha-\vay occupying a prominent place 
among his nation. When asked why he had 
played such tricks on the Governor, he merely 
pointed to his forehead, saying: "Headwork, 
Governor, headwork !" The pioneers enjoyed 
many a laugh over the recital of the Gov- 
ernor's discomfiture. 

DeTocqueville found that the majority of 
the tepees or wigwams along the Saginaw 
shore consisted of a few poles driven into tlie 
ground with a few mats thrown o\'er them. 
In this far Northern latitude a good camp-fire 
was their substitute for warm bed clothes. In 
the dead of winter they often encountered fam- 
ines, when a handful of meal and a bit of water 
was their only food for days at a time. Equally 
startling is his recital of the practices of their 
medicine men. A cave in the side of a sandhill 
was given a white heat, when those suffering 
from rheumatism and similar diseases entered 
the liot bath, and amid the steam and smoke 
looked like fiends infernal. After many in- 
cantations, the medicine men and the sick rush 
out of the inferno, straight into the ice-cold 
river. Tiiis must have been on the princi])le 
of "kill or cure," although numerous cures 
were actually effected by this drastic treatment. 

The Indians of the valley enjoyed hunt- 
ing, and did not follow their game merely for 
the sake of the venison. The Hurons loved 
the adventure and excitement of the chase and 
for their great tribal hunts they prepared by 
fasting, dreaming and other superstitious ob- 
servances. A certain district which was to [)e 
hunted over was encircled, and the game driven 
to a common center, where it was killed in the 
primitive manner of the aborigines, for few 
firearms had found tlicir wav into this secluded 



nook of the Northwest. In the early fall or 
early spring the Indians sometimes chased the 
game out on thin ice, when it was easily se- 
cured. Deer were much sought after for their 
hides and venison, but the trappers early taught 
the Indians of this vicinity the value of the 
beaver skins, and the Chippewas and kindred 
tribes of Huron extraction were far-famed 
hunters and trappers. They secured the beav- 
ers by placing themselves on the cut dike, which 
enclosed the busy beaver village, and when the 
beavers ran out to see why their water was 
running out, they were easily captured. In 
winter a hole was made in the ice, to which the 
beavers would come to breathe, only to be 
snatched by the remorseless hunters. A bear 
was never attacked by the Indians single- 
handed, if they could avoid a fight. Their tom- 
ahawks and stone or flint battle-axes made lit- 
tle impression on a fighting bear, and the war- 
riors respected his prowess, and sang of it, as 
they did of the industry and intelligence of the 
beavers. Dogs were the only domestic animals 
found among the Hurons, and they were not 
well treated, being left to find their own food, 
and proving a nuisance to missionaries and 
travelers, but they were invalualile to the red 
man in the chase. 

The Chippewas never ate their victuals raw, 
but rather overboiled them, and for a long time 
they had no use for salt, pepper or other condi- 
ment. An Indian chief, being invited by some 
trappers to a feast in the wilderness, saw them 
use some mustard, and out of curiosity put a 
spoonful into his mouth. The result can be 
imagined. Wishing to escape ridicule, he 
made desperate efforts to conceal his torture, 
but violent sneezing and tears streaming from 
his eyes told their own story. His hosts ex- 
plained how mustard should be used, but the 
brave never after touched the "boiling yellow," 
as he called it. The Chippewas apparently had 



42 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



cast-iron constitutions and capacious stomachs. 
They were known to hve without food for 
many days, and seemingly did not suffer for 
it. On the otiier hand they would sit down to 
a feast, and prove regular gluttons, it being 
a rule with them to never leave anything on 
the table. All must be eaten, and the rule never 
troubled them much. 

The remnant of Sauks in the Far West ap- 
pear to have been more civilized than the Chip- 
pewas of Michigan, who drove them from this 
valley. Dr. Carver, for instance, found the 
Sauks" houses built of well-cut and well-fitted 
planks, with cozy rooms, while their concjuer- 
ors in "O-Sauk-e-non" still lived in shabby 
shacks or shabbier tepees. 

The war and ceremonial dances of the In- 
dians living within the confines of what is now 
Bay County varied little from those of all other 
Western tribes. Usually some 40 or 50 warriors, 
and at times as many more sc]uaws, would exe- 
cute one of their fantastic dances about a huge 
fire. With their monotonous chant, a violent 
stamping of the feet, and peculiar contortions 
of the body and arms, they kept time with the 
chant, broken now and then by ear-piercing 
shrieks, and demoniac howls. The war-dance 
and the medicine-dance were pantomimes, and 
more elaborate than the other Indian dances. 
De Tocqueville rather liked the calumet, or pipe 
of peace dance, and also ihe marriage dance, 
given when some chief of note took unto him- 
self a wife. ■ In the Chippewa medicine-dance, 
their medicine men used animals' heads and all 
other imaginable toggery to complete their gro- 
tesque and startling make-ups. These Indian 
dances were an event along the valley up to 40 
years. ago, and whenever a dance was planned 
all the early settlers made an effort to be pres- 
ent. It broke the monotony of hard work and 
isolation for them, and while the Indian cere- 
monies were often shockingly suggestive, and in 



the later years made even more diabolical by 
the Indians taking strong liquors to stir up 
their passions, before and during the dances, 
still it was in the nature of a weird show, and 
gave the scattered settlers an opportunity to 
meet and greet one another. The early Ger- 
man settlers from Franken, in Bavaria, who 
created the township of Frankenlust out of 
the wilderness, and whose sons and daughters 
are to-day scattered all over the county, thriv- 
ing farmers and business men and women, be- 
ing very devout, looked on these Indian dances 
with horror. To them the dances were savage 
idolatry, and for years they esteemed it a griev- 
ous sin to even look at the medicine-dance! 
Many of the other pioneers to the valley came 
to trade with the Indians, and some of the more 
adventurous even dressed as the aborigines did, 
and took part in the dances. Well might a 
Longfellow sing: 

Sliould j-ou ask where Nawadaha 
Found these dances wild and wayward. 
Found these legends and traditions, 
I should answer, I should tell you, 
"In the birds' nests of the forest, 
In the lodges of the beaver, 
In the hoof-prints of the bison, 
In the eyry of the eagle ! 

"All the wild-fowl sang them to him. 
In the morelands and the fen-lands, 
In the melancholy marshes !" 

— Adapted from The Song of Hiazcatlia. 

The Hurons were far-famed as orators, and 
the early settlers often listened for hours to 
Chief O-ge-ma-ke-ga-to and other great men of 
the tribes wandering about these parts recite the 
great deeds of their great warriors. They would 
tell of hunting with Tecumseh, and the old men 
of the tribe would grow eloquent in speaking 
of Pontiac, whom they had seen in all his 
splendor as a leader and orator. Their tradi- 
tions tell us of his visit to the wigwams on the 
Saginaw, where he met in council the chiefs 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



45 



of the Chippewas, Dakotalis and 01)ji1)\vas, on 
liis mission of arousing all these scattered 
trihes for one concerted effort against the pale 
faces, who were slowly Init surely dispossessing 
his race of their favorite hunting grounds. 
He could not stop the onward march of civil- 
ization, great as was his native genius and abil- 
ity, but he did stir the hearts of the red men. as 
they had ne\-er been stirred before or since. 
His race has no written records, and the recital 
of his daring, eloquence and generalship is now 
but a tradition among the old men of the tribes 
he led. His deeds have been but charily com- 
memorated by the historians of an inimical but 
stronger race. Of Pontiac the old chiefs were 
wont to tell, how he told the emissaries of 
the King of England, that he would c:dl him 
"uncle" but never "king." Pontiac. too, re- 
alized the advantages of this distant valley and, 
if we are to believe the traditions of his de- 
scendants, he frequently hunted in these par's. 
Certain it is, that the valley was a favorite 
camping ground of the Indians. Along the 
shores of the Kawkawlin and the other tribu- 
taries of bay and river, from the time of the first 
pale face explorer to the present day, are found 
the mounds where sleep all that was mortal of 
these children of the forest and jirairie. In 
some of them are found to this day the weap- 
ons, wampum and other trinkets, that were 
placed with the dead for use on their journey 
to another and a happier hunting ground. The 
Indian collection of the Pioneer Society in the 
Capitol at Lansing owes some of its finest spec- 
imens to this valley. The mass graves found 
by the early seitlers spoke of death in battle 
and death in pestilence, for smallpox and the 
plague often brought whole tribes to the verge 
of extinction. So great were the attractions 
and advantages of this valley to the red men, 
that for centuries it was considered the most 
thickly populated by the red men of Michigan. 



Not even the superstitions about evil sjjirits 
dwelling in the dismal forest on the shores of 
Saginaw Bay could keep the natives away from 
a spot so blessed with all that went to make it 
an ideal place for human habitations, whether 
those habitations be the wigwams of untutored 
savages, or the palatial summer homes of 20th 
century captains of industry. 

\\'hen, in 1849, Longfellow entertained at 
his home in Boston the famous Ojibwa chief, 
Kah-ge-ga-bowh, he heard much of this won- 
derful valley, and much of the traditions and 
legends so beautifully blended together in his 
immortal poems, "Evangeline" and "The Song 
of Hiawatha," centered about these beloved 
bunting grounds of the race his genius immor- 
trdized. The Acadians driven from their 
homes find protection, food and profitable eni- 
ployment amid the hunting lodges of the Sag- 
inaw, although they are wanderers still and 
Evangeline seeks her Gabriel in vain on the 
banks of the Saginaw. He, too. is restless, 
seeking, hoping for that loving heart, that alas, 
was not to find him in this world, until his 
weary spirit was ready to soar to the spirit re- 
gion, whence none return. And the pale faces 
who came in the middle of the 19th century, 
they, too, had heard this poet of the red men, 
and the enterprising colony on the west shore 
of the Saginaw River, which this very year, 
will become the West Side of Greater Bay City, 
was named "W'enonah" after the mother of Hi- 
awatha, who gave her beautiful young life that 
liiawatha might live. 

And the West-Wind came at evening, 
Walking lightly o'er the prairie, 
Whispering to the leaves and blossoms', 
Bending low the flowers and grasses, 
Found the beautiful Wenonah, 
Lying there among the lilies. 
Wooed her with his words of sweetness, 
Wooed her with his soft caresses. 
Till she bore a "aon in sorrow, 



46 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Bore a son of love and sorrow. 

Thus was born my Hiawatha, 
Thus was born the child of wonder; 
But the daughter of Nokomis, 
Hiawatha's gentle mother, 
In her anguish died deserted 
By the West-Wind, false, and faithless, 
r>y the heartless IMudjekeewis. 

— Tlic Song of IliaK'atha. 

Can there be any doubt what region the 
poet liad in mind, what scenes he pictured w hen 
he w role : 

Now, o'er all the dreary Northland, 

Mighty Peboan, the Winter, 

Breathing on the lakes and rivers. 

Into stone had changed their waters. 

From his hair he shook the snowflakes. 

Till the plains were strewn with whitenes's. 

One uninterrupted level, 

As if, stooping, the Creator 

With his hand had smoothed them over. 

Through the forest, wild and wailing, 
Roamed the hunter on his snow-shoes ; 
In the village worked the women. 
Pounded maize, or dressed the deer-skin ; 
And the young men played together 
On the ice the noisy ball-play. 

— The Song of Hiaivatha. 

Passing from the enchanted reahn of the 
poet and seer to tlie ever present, grim reality, 
we find that the Indians were very num- 
erous here when the first permanent set- 
tlers arrived, being variously estimated at 
from 2.500 to 5,000. As late as 1865 
they numberetl about 2,000, but after 
the tribe ceded its last reservation of 
40,000 acres to the govermnent, many of the 
Indian families removed to the agency at Isa- 
bella, and the Indian settlements at Saganing, 
Indiantown, and Ouanicassee. Very reluct- 
antly they gave up the arms of the huntsman, 
and took up the plow and the harrow. While 
some are very industrious and even successful 
as up-to-date agriculturists, the majority eke 
out a miserable existence in shacks but little bet- 



ter than their ancestors useil centuries ago. In- 
tercourse with the white race, their changed 
lives, occupation and surroundings have robbed 
them of that robust physique and fiery spirit, 
which in past generations made a smoke-filled 
w igwam a palace for the hardy aborigine, and 
at all times preferable to the confinement of a 
white man's stone mansion. Broken in health, 
they are also broken in spirit. Little of ro- 
mance clusters about the poorly clad, frail sur- 
vivors of a once powerful race, who still live 
within this county. There is little about their 
poverty-stricken shacks that would induce one 
to call them, as of old, the noble red men ! 
Time, exposure, and contamination with all 
that is most degrading and injurious in our 
own boasted ci\'ilization, are slowly but surely 
wiping out the last remnants of the nation of 
Hurons and the tribe of Chippewas. 

But lately, the community was shocked at 
the recital of a local Indian on a rampage. 
l""illed with liquor, he terrorized a West Side 
resort witli a vicious looking knife. A 1)urly 
guardian of the peace stepped in, and the drink- 
crazed brave was easily landed in limbo, where 
next morning he begged meekly enough to be 
allowed to go to his shack on the Kawkawlin, 
where every cent he so recklessly squandered 
would have meant so ver.}', very much to his 
helpless family. A week later we read, with 
pitying interest, of the pangs of hunger, of cold 
and privation in another such shack, where a 
poor Indian woman lies in the last throes of 
consumption, getting only such care and nour- 
ishment as the poor authorities of Bangor 
township can provide. Alas ! How the once 
mighty race has fallen! But let us draw a veil 
over the grim scene! Let us as a strong and 
prosperous people, however, never forget that 
after all they were the original owners of all 
this vast territory, and that they received little 
enough, when they were dispossessed. Let us 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



47 



accord them in their declining days sometliing 
better than the crumbs that fall from our mu- 
nicipal table in alms and charities. They, too, 
are a twig from Adam's tree ; they, too, have 
souls. And they, perhaps more than all other 
living persons within the confines of prosperous 
Bay County, should merit our sympathy, our 
encouragement, and substantial remembrance. 
Thousands of dollars are annually sent 
from this part of Michigan to the yellow races 
in Asia., and the black races of Africa, for mis- 
sionary effort, while a dying race of red men, 
at our very doors, to whom we really owe 
something, appear to be entirely forgotten. 
They have a smacking of our civilization, it 
is true, and most of them profess the God of 
our fathers. Let us then treat them as broth- 
ers, aye, as brothers in need, and accord them 
every encouragement in our power. Then when 
the sun shall have set on the last of the Hurons, 
we may have no vain regrets. For the blood 
and the bitterness of the past, where the rival 



races met, we of to-day are not accountable! 
But we are responsible for these children of this 
Western Hemisphere, in this, our day and 
generation. Charity begins at home, and what 
heart-beat of our people is there to-day. that 
does not go out in sympathy and kindness to 
the poor, suffering and dying remnants of the 
American Indians at our very doors! Let jus- 
tice be mingled with mercv and love, that the 
dying race may know and feel, that the pale 
faces are not forgetful e\en of the least of 
Adam's twigs within their borders! Let us 
make their last days on earth more cheerful, 
less painful, by the collective assistance and 
good cheer of our industrious, progressive, 
prosperous and Christian community, built 
upon the shores that not so very long ago were 
the undisturbed hunting grounds of Poor Lo! 

Indulge, my native land ; indulge the tear 

That steals impassioned o'er a race's doom ! 

To us, each twig from Adam's stock is near, 
And sorrows fall upon the Indian's tomb! 




LOWER SAGINAW (now b.*v city) IN 1S.-,4. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 

The Onward March of Civilization — The Pale Faces Westward Bound — Years of 
Exploration^ and Trading with the Indians — Trappers, Hunters and Adven- 
turers — The Saginaw Valley for Years the Northernmost Outpost of Civili- 
zation IN THE Northwest Territory — Indian Title to Land Extinguished — The 
Earliest White Settlers. 

Home of my heart, I sing of thee, 

Michigan, my Michigan. 
Thy lake-bound shores I long to see, 

Michigan, my Michigan. 
From Saginaw's tall and whispering pines 
To Lake Superior's farthest mines, 
Fair in the light of memory shines, 

^Michigan, my Michigan. 



So often have we heard the stirring 



mes 
to the 
younger generation our commonwealth seems 



dedicated to our native State, that 



venerable, and ripe with the passing of count- 
less ages. Yet history records but a single 
centur)', since from the almost unknown 
and seemingly unlimited Northwest Territory 
Michigan was carved and set up as a separate 
Territory in 1804. In the "Pioneer Room" 
of our Capitol at Lansing, there hangs a large 
colored map, once the property of a Bay County 
pioneer, — Capt. Joseph F. Marsac. It conveys 
more eloquently than words could describe the 
crude ideas regarding our geographical situa- 
tion, and the wide reaches of territory com- 
prised at that late day within the boundaries 
of a single township. In the same room hangs 
an oil painting, entitled "Detroit in 1820." It 



shows a few scattered residences along the 
river front, dense woods in the background, 
and strange sailing craft upon the waters. At 
the time Michigan was created into a separate 
Territory, the interior was practically unex- 
plored. A few scattered settlements, together 
with Detroit, comprised all that was tangible 
100 years ago in that future garden spot of 
the universe, — Michigan, my Michigan ! 

With the Louisiana Purchase, the tide of 
immigration was drawn due Westward. End- 
less cara\'ans crossed Kentucky, Southern 
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, in the restless hunt 
of hardy pioneers for the El Dorado of the 
Middle \\'est. 

Adventurers, explorers, hunters and trap- 
pers alone turned aside to face the icy blasts 
of winter, and the fierv heat of summer, in the 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



49 



wilds of the lake region of ^Michigan. Then, 
as now, much of that influx came across tlie 
Canadian Ijorder. The stories of JNIichigan's 
rigorous climate had no terrors for a race that 
faced and lived through the winters of Canada. 
The stories told l)y rambling Indians of the par- 
adise of fish and game within this mysterious 
lake-bound region drew on these adventurers 
like a magnet. Neither hardship nor danger 
could stop their advance. Trackless prairies, 
dense virgin forests, and impenetrable swamps 
merely roused their curiosity and spurred them 
on to delve deeper into the mysteries hidden be- 
hind the thin curtain of civilization on the east- 
ern lx)rders of the Territory. The first adven- 
turers founil such a rich reward in beaver skins 
and similar trophies of the chase and the In- 
dian trade, that others quickly followed, with 
varying success. Since for ages the Indians 
had lauded tlie Saginaw X^alley as their richest 
hunting ground, it was but natural that these 
adventurers, hunters and trappers should push 
straight through to this El Dorado of the abor- 
igines. Many a white man's hunting lodge was 
erected on the shores of Saginaw Bay and its 
tributary rivers, long before any written rec- 
ords preserved their deeds of daring in this 
wild land, among wild animals and almost 
eriually ferocious aborigines. Gabriel the Aca- 
dian, the long-sought hero of folklore, builds 
his hunting lodge on the banks of the Saginaw, 
and for many moons enjoys the sport of kings 
among the denizens of forest and river. This 
was at a time when the Indians believed this 
"Land of the Sauks" was haunted l)y the evil 
spirits of that ancient race which they had al- 
most exterminated on this very spot, and these 
superstitious children of the forest appear not 
to have interfered much with these daring 
huntsmen and fishermen. Their quarrel ap- 
peared to be in times of peace with the advanc- 
ing mass of pale faces. Where settlements 



were ])lanted and the plow and harrow brought 
harvests from the virgin soil, there was no 
longer room for the wild game of forest and 
prairie, and hence the Indian huntsman must 
take his tepee and move Westward, away from 
the advancing tide of an older and better, but 
by him a detested, civilization. 

Of the great Huron. Pontiac, it is written, 
that he stopped the expedition of Major Rog- 
ers, who was sent into this country about 1760 
to drive out the French. "Why come you into 
our hunting grounds? My white brother has 
houses and lands and beasts, why should he 
take the red man's?" And when Alajor Rog- 
ers tried to convince the great chief that he 
came against the French and not against the 
natives, Pontiac shook his grave head and re- 
plied : "My white brother has the talking 
hand. We cannot compete with his slyness. 
Yet has he taken our lands, and stolen our 
strength ! I appeal to any white man to say, 
if he ever entered my wigwam hungry, and I 
gave him not meat. If he ever came cold and 
weary, and I provided not good cheer. But 
then he came alone and as a friend ! To-day 
you come as conquerors! My people have lost 
much. Aly people have suffered much. I \vi11 
see. I accept your belts of wampum, but 1 stand 
in your path until to-morrow 1" Major Rogers 
respected the suggestion to wait, and by sun- 
down of the following day Pontiac had coun- 
seled with his chieftains and decided that peace 
was preferable to a war which could accomplish 
nothing for his race. He sent word to all the 
tribes of the lake region to ])ermit the expedi- 
tion to pass, and himself accompanied Rogers' 
column into Detroit. But his address fur- 
nished an insight into the natives' treatment of 
the first pale faces who entered their hunting 
grounds. The Indians felt instinctively that 
the daring pale faces who left civilization and 
their kindred far behind them, who dauntlessly 



5° 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



entered the primeval forest, and lived even as 
they lived, came not as enemies, but as friends. 

So only can we explain how these first 
missionaries, these first hnnters and trappers, 
came into the wilderness among this wild and 
untamed people, and lived to tell their many 
harrowing" experiences. The daring adventur- 
ers felt safe because of their very weak- 
ness. The Indians felt assured, that 
those brave enough to be fearless must 
be friends. The Hurons treated the mass 
of pale faces as enemies, but almost 
invariably befriended the isolated adventurer. 
Many of these wandering pale faces returned 
this frendship in kind, marrying Indian girls 
and becoming so attached to the roving life 
and the crude hospitality of the Hurons, that 
they became adopted members of the tribe, and 
in tliat favored position did much to soften the 
natural animosity of the two races. 

The earliest explorers of the Saginaw Val- 
ley invariably came singly and in pairs. For 
half a century these daring recluses came and 
went through the land of the Hurons. without 
attempting any permanent settlement or bring- 
ing their families with them. Detroit was 
their home. There they placed their wives, 
children and other relatives for safekeeping, 
for while no open act of hostility disturbed the 
region for years at a time, yet these hardy pio- 
neers ne\'er knew when the sporadic toleration 
of the Indian would turn to malignant liate, 
and open friendship to treacherous massacre 
and bloodshed. 

Instances were not uncommon, where these 
adventurers maintained two separate family es- 
tablishments, — their original family behind the 
stockades at Detroit, and an Indian squaw and 
her children far in the interior. This dual life 
was prompted more by the instinct of self- 
preservation, than by a desire of these simple- 
hearted woodsmen to have a harem. ]\Iost of 



the hunters and trappers who first visited and 
lived in these parts, before the opening of the 
last century, were devout Christians. Each 
had his patron saint, and few forgot to worship 
in the way of their fathers, although hundreds 
of miles separated them from their house of 
worship and its devoted shepherd. Such were 
the men who first penetrated the dense virgin 
forests, the trackless prairies and the for many 
years impenetrable swamps, which reached 
northward and westward from Detroit, and 
bordered the great bay and river in "0-Sauk- 
e-non !" For the hardships they endured, and 
the risks they ran, they reaped but a poor re- 
ward. Few saved anything for the future, 
and fewer still attained old age. They were 
driven onward by the spirit of the age! A 
story was often told around the camp-fires of 
early pioneers here, how in a pretty settlement 
of Ontario a sturdy farmer yearned to go into 
the unknown wilderness of Michigan. His 
family would go with him, yet they disliked 
leaving so much comfort and happiness behind. 
As a last recourse, the priest called on the rest- 
less parishioner and tried to dissuade him. 
'"You want to go away from all your friends, 
to the bloodthirsty savages. From your lands, 
your cattle, your home, to wild and dangerous 
lands you cannot know. For your cow and her 
rich milk, yiiu will exchange the wild and 
worthless buffalo. And how will your poor 
wife and babies live? Nay, Peter, you cannot, 
you must not go." But Peter was determined 
to go. "This country is getting crowded, it 
is too small, too narrow for me," he would re- 
ply. "There is free land and lots of it to the 
^Vestward, where luy children shall become 
large landowners, and where I shall be better 
able to provide for my family. Here we are 
but poor farmers, and I am restless. Yonder 
is the profusion of the Lord spread out for us, 
but for the asking. I am going West," and 



AXD REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



West lie went. He tarried only long enough 
in Detroit to see his little family under the pro- 
tecting wing of an old countryman of his, and 
then he plunged into the wilderness. For years 
he was one of the most sucessful traders among 
the Indians. Then came the great war, and one 
of the first to fall at the River Raisin massacre 
was the scout. Peter Moultaine. He was well 
known among the older Indians in these parts, 
who often spoke of his prowess and his knowl- 
edge of woodcraft. Perhaps he did not real- 
ize all his fond dreams of great wealth. Per- 
haps his family did not reap that greater inde- 
pendence which he pictured so glowingly ere 
leaving the community in Ontario they called 
their home. Restless he was to his dying day, 
but he was also undoubtedly happy in the free 
and adventurous life he had chosen for himself. 
Ambitious he must have been, and if all men 
were content, what would this world be? How 
long would the rich and beautiful plains of 
Michigan, how long this valley, have been left 
in outer darkness and oblivion, but for the 
spirit of exploration and adventure which ani- 
mated Peter Moultaine and his compatriots? 
Such was the career of most of the earliest 
white men to traverse the wilds of Michigan, 
and from their hunting lodges see the glories 
of creation on the wood-bound shores of Sag- 
inaw Bay. They came and went through the 
vast wilderness like phantoms of the night. 
Seldom did they tarry any length of time in 
any one place. Evangeline learned that to her 
sorrow, for ere she reached the banks of the 
Saginaw, after long and wearisome marches, 
the hunter's lodge was fallen in ruins and de- 
serted ! They sought the home of the beaver, 
the run of the finny tril)es of river and bay, 
the trail of the bison lierd. the antelope and the 
deer. Where game abounded, and the wan- 
dering red men had their tepees, there too 



camped the border hero of our own State and 
county. 

Years passed, eventful in romance and ad- 
venture, replete with war and w-ar's alarms. 
The tide of pale faces Westward bound does 
not move steadily onward. Each new disturb- 
ance on the borders stops the onward march 
of civilization for a time. The forces of the 
savage aborigines and ambitious settlers drench 
the dividing line with the blood of the inno- 
cents, until both sides grow weary with the 
slaughter. 

Then comes an interval of peace and quiet, 
and this is soon followed by another deter- 
mined push forward and Westward by the 
hardy pioneers, reinforced by thousands of im- 
migrants, who have crossed the Atlantic to 
escape the "Reign of Terror" in France, the 
blood-drenched plains of Europe during the 
Napoleonic wars, and the poverty and distress 
following in their wake. This wave of immi- 
gration has for years stopped on the outskirts 
of Detroit and in neighboring sections of Mich- 
igan. More than a century has passed since 
Father Alarquette passed up the Detroit River 
and over the vast waters of Lake Huron and 
its tributary ri\ers. A few official exploring 
parties have since tried to trace the outline of 
lake and bay and river, and hundreds of daring 
adventurers have crossed the Lower Peninsula 
of Michigan in every direction, but none have 
come to make settlements, none have come to 
stay. 

During all these years of exploration and 
trading with the Indians, the mouth of the Sag- 
inaw River has been a rendezvous for the two 
races in Michigan. The many rivers centering 
here, the wide reaches of the bay and lake, 
made it easy for the Indians to reach it in their 
bark canoes. E\en the aborigines appreciated 
ready water transportation ! Hence this valley 



52 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



was fur years the Northernmost outpost of 
civilization in the Northwest Territory. The 
Inthan could carry heavy loads of hides and 
carcasses for long distances and in a short 
space of time, but he preferred to load them 
into his canoe and drift rapidly to the rendez- 
vous where the white trader exchanged warm 
blankets, fiery rum. cheap trinkets, old-fash- 
ioned firearms, and similar stock in trade, for 
the Indian's trophies of the chase. At frequent 
intervals during the spring, summer and fall, 
these trading bees were held here, while during 
the long and bitterly cold winters the white 
traders rusticated in their protected shacks 
within the stockades at Detroit. 

It is a matter of history, that Michigan was 
one of the last of the central tier of States to 
have its interior opened for settlement, but to 
the glory of this State be it w-ritten that this 
settlement cost less in blood and in treasure 
than did the settlement of any of our sister 
States. Undoubtedly the spirit of Father Mar- 
quette and the early missionaries exerted a 
powerful and a peaceful influence o\er the ab- 
origines of this region. Equally certain is it, 
that the long years of intercourse with the 
rough but honest traders and trappers paved 
the way for that peaceful settlement. Occa- 
sionally the Indians of these parts clashed hard 
with the pale faces, and true to their savage 
nature the red men committed some beastly 
crimes, even in this valley. During the several 
wars between the French and English, and 
later between the English and the Americans, 
the warlike tribes along Lake Huron became 
easily involved, and brought on some bloody 
battles and sanguinary massacres. The inter- 
course of the pioneers was never free from 
danger. But on the whole, the settlement of 
Michigan was tranquil, compared to the rec- 
ords of the "bloody ground" in Kentucky, the 
years of bitter strife between the races in the 



valleys of the Ohio, the Mississippi and the 
Missouri, and on the great Western plains. 

In this very valley, and likely upon the 
very spot where the West Side of Greater Bay 
City is now situated, the great empire-builder 
of our commonwealth, — Lewis Cass, — held 
one of his numerous councils with the Indian 
tribes of this vicinity, and began the prelimina- 
ries for the treaties by which the Indians ceded 
peacefully, by extinguishment of the Indian 
title, more than one-half of Michigan, and 
large portions of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and 
Wisconsin. 

As we ponder over those masterful treaties 
with the crafty chieftains, we wonder if our 
great State has ever done full justice to Lewis 
Cass, our commonwealth-builder, the Secretary 
of War under Andrew Jackson, then Minister 
to France, the sturdy son of Michigan, wdio 
for 12 years stood with Webster and Clay in 
defense of the constitution, who was once the 
candidate of his party for I'resident, and dur- 
ing whose second term in the United States 
Senate that strong mo\'ement began in Michi- 
gan against the extension of slavery North and 
West. He was a son of Michigan's colonial 
period, and typical of that generation of strong 
and good men. We owe much of our early 
progress to Lewis Cass. 

With the close of the War of 1812, and the 
winning over of the hostile Indians, the roving 
adventurers went farther north, while in the 
south they were followed by pioneers looking 
for places to settle. The Indians gradually 
withdrew to the agencies and settlements pro- 
vided for them by the several treaties. 

A new era dawned for Michigan, and the 
Saginaw Valley was not long to feel its splen- 
did isolation. The rays of advancing civiliza- 
tion are sweeping the horizon, and penetrating 
the darkest recesses of wood and glen. In the 
chanceful tide of human affairs, there comes 




lliif Aj|fftfi 



^'^i rifftf 




;ITY HALL AND PUBLIC LIBRARY. BAY CITY, E. S. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CTITZENS. 



b:3 



here the opportunity for tlie founders of homes 
and tlie builders of cities. Truly was it 
written : 

Toil swings the axe and forests bow, 

The fields break out in radiant bloom ; 

Rich harvests smile behind the plow, 
And cities cluster round the loom ! 

Little more than 70 years ago this valley 
was still but a happy hunting ground. The 
sound of the woodsman's axe had never broken 
the forest solitude of centuries, and neither 
land nor water hereabouts had ever felt aught 
save the rudest, primeval civilization. The 
French philosopher and traveler, DeTocque- 
ville, from his camp of exploration and scien- 
tific research on the banks of Saginaw Bay, 
penned for his "Democracy of America"" these 
prophetic lines : "In a few years these impen- 
etrable forests will ha\-e fallen ; the sons of civ- 
ilization will break the silence of the Saginaw ! 
The banks of the mighty stream will be impris- 
oned by quays ; its current, which now flows 
tranquil and unnoticed through a nameless 
waste, will be stemmed b_v the prows of vessels. 
We are the last travelers allowed to see the 
primitive grandeur of this solitude."' 

Prophetic words soon to be fulfilled. For 
the restless stream of immigrants is sweeping 
at last over the narrow limits of Michigan"s 
earliest colonies and flooding the interior. But 
even the imagination of a DeTocqueville could 
not have forecast the wonderful transforma- 
tion of the last half century. The silence of the 
Saginaw has been broken by a chorus of indus- 
try that has startled the commercial world. 
Out of the wilderness have been hewn thriving 
communities, beautiful to behold, and along 
the numberless rivulets and streams that ribbon 
the breast of the valley, there have been created 
such rich and bountiful farms as have well 
earned for Bay County its favorite title, "the 

G.XRDEN SPOT OF MICHIGAN." 



However, the period of which we write is 
still but 1813. Col. Lewis Cass has only just 
been made Military Governor of Michigan Ter- 
ritory. Commodore Perry"s victory has settled 
forever the question, whether the English lion 
or the American eagle shall hold sway over this 
yet unfathomed wealth of agricultural and 
mineral resources, within the lake-bound shores 
of Michigan, and General Harrison's splendid 
victory at Tippecanoe has broken the power of 
Chief Tecumseh's confederation of Indian 
tribes. The master hand of the commoner is 
reaching out over the silent forests of ]\Iichi- 
gan's interior, and the light of government 
investigation is sweeping over the shores of 
Saginaw river and bay. The surveyor and In- 
dian agent are quickly followed by the more 
venturesome of border pioneers. Listen and 
you will hear: 

The martial tread of pioneers 

Of nations yet to be. 
The firs't low wash of waves, where soon 

Shall roll a human sea. 
The rudiments of empire here 

Are plastic yet, and warm; 
The chaos of a mighty world 

Is rounding into form ! 

The first steamboat, the "W'alk-in-the- 
Water," began regtilar trips between Buffalo 
and Detroit in 1818, and the immigrants West- 
ward bound, having before them the long and 
wearisome trip in the prairie schooner across 
the Middle West, paused as they heard of this 
new El Dorado of the Northwest, now so easily 
reached, and thousands who had started for the 
Mississippi turned Northward and entered 
Michigan. 

Governor Cass and Woodbridge, his sec- 
retary, were indefatigable in making their 
home-building within the State, peaceful, at- 
tractive and profitable. W'agon roads were 
the first great necessity, and after a good road 



56 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



had been hewn around the shore of Lake Erie 
and from Detroit to Chicago, the Governor 
turned his attention to the central part of the 
State. He recognized the material advantages 
of the Saginaw Valley, and was ever lauding 
its rich soil, its boundless forests, its navigable 
streams, alive with fish, and its commanding 
position. 

About 1825 the Erie Canal was opened for 
trade and this gave a new impetus to the trade 
of the Great Lakes, and enhanced the harbor 
facilities of Saginaw Bay. Steam and sailing 
craft, lx)und for shore trade and locating trad- 
ing centers, sailed up the Saginaw River, and 
their stories of its beauty and natural advan- 
tages attracted general attention to this valley. 

Southeastern ^Michigan was secured by 
treaty from the Indians through Governor 
William Hull in 1807. This left the Saginaw 
River and its tributaries in undisputed posses- 
sion of the natives until 18 19. In that year 
Governor Cass again came to the Saginaw A'al- 
ley, and from September loth to 22nd, con- 
ferred with the Indians about the terms of a 
new treaty. After weary hours of council and 
harangue, the final terms of that famous treaty 
were mutually agreed to, granting to the 
L'nited States all but 40,000 acres of their ter- 
ritory. The reservation they retained was 
mostly on the west bank of the river, and 
reaching around the wide western sweep of 
Saginaw Ba\'. proving clearly that this was in- 
deed their favorite hunting ground. Two In- 
dian traders, Stephen V. R. Riley and Jacob 
Smith, who had married Indian squaws, and 
who with their children were treated by the 
natives as their own kindred, took an active 
part in adjusting the differences between the 
crafty Indians and ^licliigan's wise com- 
moner. In appreciation of their services, they 
were allowed extensive land grants by the na- 
tional government, the three sons of ^Ir. Riley. 



— John, Peter and James, — being each given 
640 acres. The tract of the eldest became the 
famous Riley Reserve, now entirely within 
the confines of Bay City. 

In 1835 the people of Michigan, claiming 
their right under the ordinance of 1787, or- 
ganized and put into operation a State govern- 
ment, and sent to the L'nited States Senate, 
Lucius Lyon and John Norvell. For nearly 14 
months these two representatives were kept in 
the corridors of the Capitol at Washington, 
until the boundary dispute between the young 
and ambitious State and the Congress was set- 
tled, as such disputes are usually settled, in 
favor of the stronger party, — the Congress. 
On January 26, 1837, Michigan entered the 
Union as the 26th State. 

In that memorable year the Indians ceded 
their remaining 40,000 acres to the govern- 
ment, on condition that these lands be surveyed, 
and placed on the market at $5 per acre for a 
certain period, the unsold portion to go for 
$2.50 per acre. The Indians were to receive 
tlie entire proceeds of the sale, less the expenses 
of the survey and transfer. The cession was 
brought about through a visit to Washington 
by the famous Chippewa chiefs. O-ge-ma-ke- 
ga-to, Ton-dog-a-ne, Sha-e-be-no-se. Wos-so. 
Mose-ga-shink. Ma-sha-way, and Xau-qua- 
cln'c-a-me. They were accompanied by Charles 
Rodd, a half-breed interpreter, and Capt. Jo- 
seph F. Marsac, Henry O. O'Connor, Gardner 
D. Williams, and Benjamin O. Williams, 
pmniinent pioneers of the Saginaw \'alley. 
who had the esteem of the Indians. President 
Thomas Jefferson was much impressed with 
the martial bearing of the far-famed chieftain, 
O-ge-ma-ke-ga-to, and during the visit he pre- 
sented the brave with a gaudy colonel's uni- 
form, in which he afterward appeared on all 
state occasions, and in which he was eventually 
buried. As a result of this visit to the capital 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



57 



of the republic, a final council meeting was held 
on the Flint River, where the documents were 
duly signed and sealed. This was a moment- 
ous event, both for the Indians and the pio- 
neers wlic) had cume to these parts. The In- 
dians came from all directions, making the oc- 
casion one of a general reunion, and the Flint 
River witnessed a typical border scene. The 
Indians were in good humor, for their chiefs 
thought they had secured a good bargain. Vis- 
its in state were made between the more promi- 
nent chiefs and the representatives of the gov- 
ernment. Huge council fires were the centers 
of different groups, where the silent Indian 
chief did the honors to his pale face brothers : 

From the wigwain came the peace pipe 
Very old and strangely fashioned ; 
Made of red stone was the pipe-head 
From the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry 
Blessed by Manitoii the Mighty ; 
And the stem a reed with feathers. 
Filled this pipe with bark of willow. 
Placed a burning coal upon it, 
Gave it to his guest, the stranger. 

— .Adapted from The Song of Hiazvatha. 

What few white traders and settlers lived 
within a radius of 50 miles were there, for 
such an event was w^orth witnessing, and life 
in the wilderness offered few enough diver- 
sions. Stately Hurons, adorned in all their 
savage pomp, delivered orations that were 
deemed masterful by their people, as well as by 
the pioneers. The dance of peace was given 
three nights in succession, with all the weird 
accompaniments the chiefs could muster. A 
feast was spread to which all did full justice, 
and on the following day the as.sembly dis- 
persed. Michigan now held undisputed title 
to all of the lands within the borders, at the 
very time when statehood was conferred upon 
the commonwealth. 

With the cession of this last hunting ground 



of the Indians, the colonial period draws to a 
close. Settlements now became very numer- 
ous, and there was the usual rush for lands in 
the newly opened reserve. The veteran hunt- 
ers, trappers, and Indian traders, who had long 
followed the Indian trails of the Saginaw Val- 
ley, knew where the choicest parcels of land 
were located, and these land prizes fell largely 
to them. 

A few land entries had been made in what 
is now Bay County as early as 1831, by Leon 
Trombley. He erected the first permanent log 
hut on the site where stand to-day the substan- 
tial business blocks on Water and Fourth 
streets. The government had tried for years 
to instill into the Indians a liking and aptitude 
for agriculture, and Leon Trombley was one 
of the Indian farmers of this district. He 
cleared half an acre of ground from under- 
brush, and planted some potatoes. This crop 
he left in charge of an Indian and his squaw, 
while he returned to Detroit to bring up his 
family. It was early fall when he returned. 
The instability of the natives as farmers was 
proven by this early experience, for the patch 
of potatoes had never felt the scratch of a hoe! 
The fertility of the soil, however, saved Trom- 
bley a supply of the tubers for the following 
hard winter, for to his intense astonishment the 
crop had matured without cultivation. 

During the .spring of 1832, Louis ]\Iasho 
erected a log cabin on the spot where Bous- 
field's mammoth woodenware works are now 
located. Cassette Trombley was another In- 
dian teacher of farming on the west side of the 
river, about this same time. John B. Trudell, 
fisherman and trader, erected a log cabin near 
the present site of the Bay City Brewing Com- 
pany's plant in 1834. Oddly enough, Trudell 
was by genera! repute the first total abstainer 
in these parts. In 1834 the government sent 
Benjamin Cushway, a blacksmith, to this sec- 



58 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



tion. believing that tlie growing demands of 
the Indians" farms would require his services. 
The Indian, howe\-er. preferred his pipe dreams, 
his revels, hunts and sports, and there was lit- 
tle for Cushway to do. He erected his black- 
smith shop and primitive cabin near the west 
approach to the Lafayette avenue Ijridge, and 
for years was a trader among the red men. 

In 1835, Joseph Trombley left the employ 
of the American Fur Company, which had a 
flourishing agency in the valley, and with his 
brother, ]\Iedor Trombley, prepared to open 
a store of their own. The stock was purchased 
at Detroit, and shipped here on the schooner 
"Savage." The brothers selected a rather open 
spot in the wilderness bordering the river, lying 
high and dry where Water and 24th streets 
intersect. The store was built of pine logs, 
flattened on two sides, and was 25 by 30 feet 
in size. The brothers opened the first store in 
this end of the valley in time for the Indian 
payment in the fall of 1835. For many years 
they did a thriving business, exchanging their 
flour, pork, blankets, and similar useful articles, 
for the fur and venison of the Indians. The 
stock in trade had to be brought mostly by boat, 
as at that time there was only a turnpike from 
Detroit as far as Royal Oak, a distance of 14 
miles, and a rough corduroy road as far as 
Pontiac. From there radiated many Indian 
trails, but these were impassable for men with 
heavy packs. The first Trombley land entry 
was made through Major Causley, United 
States land agent at Detroit. 

These first colonists were rugged types of 
the hardy frontiersman. Of Joseph Trombley, 
it is written that he would start from Detroit 
before daybreak over the Indian trails with a 
pack on his back and arrive at Flint, 70 miles 
away, that same evening! In 1828, guided by 
two Chippewa Indians, — Was-a-wa and Bee- 
chance, — he sailed in a bark canoe along the 



shore of Saginaw Bay to where Sebewaing is 
now located. Their sole food was the game 
ihev shot. Tromliley did not find the water 
deep enough to suit him there, hence returned 
to Detroit. A log hut built at Carrollton l)y 
his uncle. Cassette Trombley, in 181 9, shel- 
tered him on a later trip of exploration in this 
\'icinily, v>"hen he tiiok up the fur trade business 
for John Jacob Astor. 

Trombley was raised among the Indians, 
and excelled at all their favorite sports. Hav- 
ing defeated their most famous young chiefs 
in feats of strength and daring, — in shooting, 
wrestling, running, jumping, swimming, hunt- 
ing or fishing, — they stood in mortal awe of 
his "big medicine," as they termed his rugged 
vitality, and for years he was a commanding 
figure in their councils. He occupied a fore- 
most place in the councils, transferring the last 
Indian reservation to the government, and 
contributed as much as any other one man to 
the creation of a thri\"ing and peaceful settle- 
ment on the site of Greater Bay City. Years 
after, it was his particular enjoyment to race 
on foot some friend who was riding a horse 
over the Indian trails to Flint and back the 
same day, a distance of 90 miles, and Trombley 
invariably won. 

In 1836, during the height of the land spec- 
ulation craze in the Northwest, Dr. Daniel 
Hughes Fitzhugh, living between here and 
Saginaw, decided to buy a parcel of land which 
Joseph Trombley also had in view. The latter 
heard that Dr. Fitzhugh had started for Flint 
on horseback, to close the deal. Trombley 
promptly gathered the necessary gold, piled it 
in his canoe, which he paddled to the Tittaba- 
wassee, and from there he ran practically all 
the way to Flint. He had the land entered and 
paid for before Dr. Fitzhugh and his horse 
arrived. During the early evening, Trombley 
returned after his canoe, showing his certifi- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



59 



cate to a trader named McDonald at tliat place. 
McDonald would not believe that Trombley 
had been to Flint and back in that short space 
of time, but lost his bet of a gallon of wine, 
when the mail carrier, who then delivered the 
few letters, proceeding this way on horseback, 
came along and acknowledged that Trombley 
had pas.sed him that morning, going into Flint 
at top speed, and a few hours later had again 
passed him on his way home. 

In 1836, Judge Albert Miller, wlio was the 
first school teacher in the valley, purchased 
some land from the Trombleys, and prepared to 
have it platted. 

The stray colonists and hermit pi(5neers 
were soon to be surrounded by ambitious com- 
munities. A new era was dawning for the 
rich valle}- of the ancient Sauks. The rugged 
tra])per and the trader were being followed by 
the farmer and the artisan. The sons of New 
England were hurrying to the far Northwest, 
just being opened. "Saginaw's tall and whis- 
pering pines" were becoming the rallying point 
of the sons of Maine, Vermont and New 
Hampshire, to whom the odor of pine was life 
itself. The silent scout who opened the way 
was disappearing, and ere long the mechanical 
industries, the workshop, the loom and the saw- 
mill replaced his hunting lodge and trader's 
tepee. His doings will be but a legend to the 



next generation, and sound like a fable at the 
dawn of another century. Yet for nigh unto 
two-thirds of the elapsed period since Father 
3>Ian|uette first explored these regions, this 
silent, rugged outpost of civilization alone had 
kept watch and ward over this valley, so blessed 
by Nature. He has given way to the axe and 
the plow of the colonist, or hied himself farther 
North and deeper into his beloved solitude. 
And now the colonist in turn is swallowed up 
by the tide of immigration, and his individuality 
and his little clearing alike are lost in the boom- 
ing frontier communities. Their lives and 
deeds are to-day little more than a memory. 
Yet we know they chose wisely when they 
settled in these parts, and they smoothed over 
many rough places for the thousands that were 
soon to follow their daring lead. Little enough 
is known of their lives and their deeds, and but 
few of their names have survived oblivion in 
the passing years. But every thoughtful resi- 
dent of this blessed valley must ever have a 
warm spot in his heart for the pioneers and 
colonists who dared the rigors and privations 
of the wilderness, and created amid untold 
dangers and suffering the garden spot on Sagi- 
naw Bay we call our home. 

Land of the lakes ! With reverence and love we cling 
To thee, once rugged nurse of savage men ! 
Land of delight, where milk and honey flow! 



CHAPTER IV. 



EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS 

The Indians and Trappers Give Way to the Settlers — Planting of Settlements 
— Memoirs and Reminiscences of Prominent Pioneers — The Period of Reck- 
less Land Speculation and "Wild-Cat" Banks — Indian Mounds and Legends 
— The Mound Builders — O-ge-ma-ke-ga-to and Other Indian Chiefs — Incidents 
of Pioneer Life on the Saginaw River and Its Tributaries — Character 
Sketches and Anecdotes. 



Before these fields were shorn and tilled 
Full to the brim our rivers flowed; 

The melody of waters filled 
The frcdi and boundless wood; 

And torrents dashed and rivulets played, 

And bisons rested in the shade. 

— Bryant. 



Indian and pale face trapper alike retreated 
before advancing civilization. Like Daniel 
Boone, of Kentucky, who in his 92nd year emi- 
grated 300 miles west of the ^Mississippi, be- 
cause he found a i)opiilation of 10 to the square 
mile inconveniently close, even so the border 
pioneers of Michigan. The buzz of a sawmill 
was the death kncU for all that these children 
of the forest held dear in life, and they retreated 
hastily to other forest fastnesses when with 
an ominous crash the giants of the forest fell 
under the woodman's axe. Hence a complete 
change of inhabitants was noted in this vallev, 
after the Indians left their favorite hunting 
grotinds and retired to their several reserva- 
tions. True, many of the bands came period- 
ically to the valley, holding their councils and 
weird dances on the spots made sacred to them 



by long associations, and by the traditions and 
customs of their forefathers. Death had 
claimed many of the Indians during that de- 
cade. An epidemic of smallpox during the 
winter of 1836-37 carried off hundreds in the 
valley, and old pioneers used to relate that many 
died and were left unburied, the todies being 
eaten bv the hogs antl w ild animals. The pio- 
neers did all in their power to help the sick and 
starving Indians during that trying ordeal, and 
thenceforward there was little friction in this 
part of the State between the races. Indeed, 
as we review the records of early settlements 
in these parts, we are struck by the good-feel- 
ing, i)eace and gootl-will apparently existing 
between the pioneers and the Indians. 

From the time that Jean Nicollet, Father 
Marquette, and other explorers visited the east- 



AND REPRESENTATI\'E CITIZENS. 



6i 



ern shore of Lake Huron and the Saginaw 
basin, there were few years that did not find 
pale face trappers, hunters and adventurers 
in this valley. Most of these adventurers 
started from Detroit, and it often happened, 
that when they bade farewell to loved ones in 
that stockade, it was also the last time they 
were seen alive. They started for the land of 
the Sauks, and were never more heard of. 
Whether they succumbed to sickness, or fell a 
prey to wild beasts or Indians, none could tell, 
but these losses were invariably charged to 
the treacherous red men. The early pioneers 
of our land were almost as superstitious as the 
red men, and hence many of the Detroit set- 
tlers believed as implicitly, as did the Hurons, 
that "0-Sauk-e-non" was haunted. After the 
Americans secured jurisdiction over the North- 
west, and hunting and warfare gave way to 
more peaceful pursuits, this valley became the 
goal of many traders. Here the Hurons came 
to hunt, to celebrate and to trade. They pre- 
ferred to deal with the hardy traders who dared 
to come to this solitude, instead of carrying 
their furs to Detroit, where they often brought 
better prices. A number of these traders van- 
ished as suddenly and as completely as though 
the valley of the Sauks had swallowed them. 
Other reckless spirits promptly took their 
places, and trade did not languish. 

One of the most prosperous of the early 
traders was Louis Trombley, grandfather of 
Joseph and Medor Trombley, who half a cen- 
tury later did so much to develop this district. 
Louis Trombley was a goldsmith by trade. He 
did a thriving business with the Chippewas, 
making silver ornaments and medals for them, 
in exchange for their furs and game. He came 
to the Saginaw Valley about 1792 in a small 
boat. Shortly after he had begun building 
another small yawl, at the mouth of the river, 
trading meanwhile with the wandering bands 



of Indians, he had a violent quarrel with an 
Indian, who thought he had been cheated in 
the trade of a muskrat spear. The Indian 
plunged a huge knife into Trombley, who with 
blood streaming from his wound leaped into 
his Ijoat and started for Detroit. He never got 
there, and his relatives never learned whether 
he had been overtaken by the Indian in a canoe, 
and murdered, or whether he fell overboard. 
_His upturned boat drifted ashore near Port 
Huron. His half-finished yawl was burned, 
and his stock of goods, left in his log cabin, 
was stolen. Such outrages were rare, however, 
in times of peace. The Indians admired the 
courage of these adventurers and needed their 
goods. 

The intermarriage of white traders with 
Indian squaws did much to bridge over the 
chasm separating the two races wherever they 
met in the wilderness. Many half-breeds lived 
in this territory, and while a shiftless class as 
a rule, having apparently inherited all the bad 
characteristics of both races, still they were not 
as vindictive toward the early settlers as some 
of the red tribesmen, and usually warned 
the traders and trappers when mischief or 
war was brewing. But now that the Indian 
had parted forever with his great hunting 
grounds, these roving pale faces made common 
cause with the Indians, and retreated with 
them into the wilds lying north of here. Hence 
we find but few Indians spoken of in the early 
records of this vicinity. These authentic rec- 
ords begin, practically, with the last Indian 
treaty, completed on the Flint River in Septem- 
ber, 1837. 

While ^lichigan was yet a Territory, the 
government at W^ashington had begun the erec- 
tion of a military road from Detroit to Sagi- 
naw, an undertaking made difficult by the large 
and numerous streams that had to be bridged. 
When Michigan became a sovereign State, this 



62 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



work was pushed even more vigorously, yet 
it did not extend much beyond the Fhnt River 
when the first settlers came on from Detroit 
for the Saginaw Valley. Consequently a num- 
ber of families tarried on Flint River, who had 
planned to go farther north. 

James McCormick, a sturdy Scotchman, 
Avas among this number. Born at Albany, 
New York, May 25, 1787, he incurred the dis- 
pleasure of his father, a Presbyterian, by mar- 
rying Ellen Garratt, a Universalist, of Gar- 
rattsville, in Otsego County, New York, which 
place was named after her father. By thrift 
and industry he accumulated what in those 
pioneer days was a nice competence. In 1830 
he went on the bond of some friends for 
$16,000, which later he had to pay, leaving him 
only $300 with which to support a large family. 
He left Albany on May i, 1832, for Michigan, 
then the Far West. The family went by canal 
boat to Buffalo, the trip requiring seven days ; 
then on the steamer "Superior" to Detroit in 
yz hours, a record-breaking trip, made possi- 
ble by favorable winds, the steamer also car- 
rying spars and sails. Detroit then had about 
3,500 inhabitants. Leaving his family in 
rented rooms in a farm house, where the Bid- 
die House in Detroit now stands, Mr. McCor- 
mick and his two oldest boys, Robert and 
James, took a wagon into the interior. Jenkins 
Davis was at that very time constructing a 
bridge across the Flint River. Hiring a past- 
ure for the horse, the boys found employment 
on this bridge, while their father purchased, 
from a half-breed named Ewing, 125 acres of 
land situated on the north side of the Flint 
River, and which 30 years later became the 
center of the thriving city of Flint. Here he 
planted potatoes brought for that purpose, and 
as there were only two log cabins in that vicin- 
ity, and both occupied, he built a similar crude 
habitation, while his son James went to Detroit 



to bring up the family. James was but 1 5 years 
old, but he was accompanied b}' a young school 
teacher from Grand Blanc, Albert Miller, who 
in after years became one of Michigan's most 
prominent citizens, and a leading pioneer of 
Bay County. The friendship between these 
two young men, begun under such peculiar cir- 
cumstances, ripened with the passing years and 
proved an influential factor in the development 
of this community. The youngsters witnessed 
the Fourth of July celebration at the old Capi- 
tol in Detroit, erected in 1825 on the site now 
occupied by Cadillac Square. John Mosher car- 
ried the household goods with his team as far 
as Grand Blanc for $25. James, with the one- 
horse wagon, carried Mrs. McCormick. his 
younger brother ^^'illiam R., and three little 
sisters. Often when the corduroy road became 
almost impassable, all had to get out and walk. 
At Grand Blanc, husband and brother met the 
family, and all camped out for the night. 
Mosher returned to Detroit, for his team could 
go no further, and McCormick and his sons 
began at daybreak to cut a way for their one- 
horse wagon through the wilderness. After 
two days of harrowing work, they reached the 
Flint Ri\er, the first settlers to get through by 
wagon. The family had plenty of potatoes and 
venison, but lacked all the other comforts of 
home. 

On October 31, 1832, Archibald L. INIcCor- 
mick was born in this crude cabin in the wilder- 
ness, the first white child born between the 
Flint River and ^lackinaw. Little did that 
sturdy pioneer and his brave wife dream what 
a future was in store for the child born under 
such primitive circumstances. When Archibald 
L. McCormick reached a man"s estate, he 
drifted into Illinois, and at the breaking out 
of the Civil War he enlisted as orderly ser- 
geant in Company B, 52nd Reg., Illinois Vol. 
Inf. For bravery at the capture of Island No. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



63 



10 in the Mississippi River, April 7, 1S62, he 
was promoted to be 2nd lieutenant. At the 
battle of Stone River. January 2, 1863, he led 
his company in cai)turing: a Rebel battery, and 
for bravery in action was promoted to be cap- 
tain of his company. He was taken prisoner 
in one of General Giant's assaults on Vicks- 
burg. and suffered terribly from sickness and 
privation. Being exchanged, he returned to 
Illinois to recruit both his health and his com- 
pany, lx)th of which objects were accomplished 
in time for the campaigns about Chattanooga. 
He was with General Sherman on his famous 
"March to the Sea." At the battle of Kenesaw 
Mountain, June 27, 1864, Captain ]\IcCormick 
and his company were selected to storm a bat- 
tery sheltered by strong breastworks. "Re- 
memljer the battery at Stone River" were his 
commander's parting words, which cheered the 
little band on its desperate errand. They silen- 
ced the battery, but Captain McCormick fell 
on the breastworks, pierced by seven bullets, a 
martyr to his country, and one of the many 
native sons given by Michigan, that our nation 
might live. 

Such was the stock that blazed the way 
through the wilderness, that other and less 
hardy generations might enjoy the fruits of 
their labor, their hardships and pri\-ations, and 
prosper amid the many gifts which Nature has 
so richly bestowed on this valley. Snch were 
the heralds of civilization in Michigan, the ad- 
vance guard of social refinement and civil lib- 
erty. From the moment that these hardy pio- 
neers left the older settlements behind them, 
and turned their faces resolutely Northwest- 
ward, their lives became one unending strug- 
gle, each day marked by sacrifice and toil and 
danger. They toiled in silence, and even their 
names have been lost to posterity. From the 
mists of obscurity that cover those years, and 
shroud the lives and deeds of the builders of 



homes and cities in the heart of Michigan, there 
stand out clear and strong, like beacon lights 
on the surrounding waters, the lives of a few 
of those stalwart sons of the New World, like 
James McCormick and his worthy sons. Their 
life work is as an index to the lives of their 
equally hardy and industrious, but less conspic- 
uous neighbors. 

The Chippewa chief, Ton-dog-a-ne, was 
then at the head of the band that had the Flint 
River bottom for its hunting ground, and the 
sage Indian took quite a fancy to the ]\IcCor- 
mick family. He often told the head of the 
family about the rich lands and boundless for- 
ests at the mouth of the Saginaw River. About 
14 miles south of Saginaw there was a clearing 
of some 200 acres in extent, on which several 
government instructors had for years endeav- 
ored to teach the roving Indians the art of rais- 
ing crops, among them being the late Capt. 
Joseph F. Marsac and Cassette Trombley. Mc- 
Cormick inspected the clearing and liked it so 
well, that in 1834 he purchased 640 acres from 
Ton-dog-a-ne, for 25 bushels of potatoes and 
corn each year for 10 years. So great was 
the confidence of these Indians in McCormick 
that his mere word sufficed to bind the bargain. 

The family was moved to the new location 
in Indian canoes, and for several nights their 
only shelter was their blankets. Half a century 
afterward these pioneers recalled how cruel it 
seemed to them then, to be left alone 
and without a roof over them, in the 
great, dark forest; especially cruel did 
it seem to the parents and older chil- 
dren who remembered their cozy home on 
the distant Hudson. A log house was built 
in the course of a few weeks, and in this the 
family lived until they came finally to Lower 
Saginaw, as Bay County was then called. The 
clearing was fenced in with rails cut from some 
walnut trees which grew in that section, — a 



64 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



rather extravagant waste of valuable timber, as 
measured by 1905 timber values, for now wal- 
nut lumber is imported from Cuba and Central 
America and resawed at the J. J. Flood mill 
on the West Side of Greater Bay City, which 
mill is especially equipped for that work. 

In 1835. McCormick sold 1,000 bushels of 
corn from this clearing to the American Fur 
Company, which carried it in boats to the In- 
dians of the Lake Superior region, in exchange 
for l)eaver skins. An Indian trail through the 
woods, and even that impassable part of the 
year, was the only means they had of communi- 
cating with the few settlers north of them, 
unless they came by boat on the river in sum- 
mer, or over the ice in winter. 

A grist mill was sorely needed by these pio- 
neers, and in 1835 McConnick went to New 
York, rec(uiring 11 days to reach Albany, 
which was fast time in the days before the iron 
horse concjuered space. He brought back with 
him a little grist mill, run by hand, with a 
handle on each side, which would hold a peck 
of corn, and would grind a bushel of corn in an 
hour! Other settlers had come to this end of 
Michigan in the meantime, and they would 
come many weary miles with their corn to use 
this primitive grist mill. That little mill was 
worth its weight in gold to the pioneers, and is 
worthy of a place in Michigan's pioneer collec- 
tion. 

This section of Michigan was overrun with 
land speculators during 1835 and 1836, and 
many of them tarried at the cabin on the Indian 
field. A field bed, holding 10 to 15 persons, 
was made for their accommodation before the 
fireplace, and was seldom empty. The water 
along the valley was much higher in those 
years than now, and after every rain the river- 
bottom trails would be lost to view. Several of 
these land lookers disappeared as mysteriously 
as some traders had done before them, and the 



valley was still held to be haunted by evil 
spirits. Undoubtedly these land lookers fell 
victims to the treacherous waters. One party 
investigating the country in 1836, which they 
knew was soon to be opened for settlement, 
was caught in one of these tempestuous rains. 
For miles along the shore of the Saginaw River 
they looked in vain for a camping place. When 
they finally found a spot that was high and dry, 
they crawled ashore utterly exhausted from 
hours of paddling against the strong current. 
Some hours later the waters began to rise, and 
shortly after midnight they had to take to their 
canoe, for their camping ground was covered 
with several feet of water^ which was still ris- 
ing. All night long they struggled against the 
current and the storm in their frail canoe, and 
all thanked Providence when morning broke 
and the storm abated. Since much drift wood 
was carried down stream, their escape from 
drowning was really miraculous. 

That same winter the McCormicks suffered 
with hundreds of other pioneers, from the 
bursting of the financial bubble, and the crash 
of "wild-cat" banks. James McCormick sold 
his surplus corn to Saginaw parties for $1.50 
per bushel, and the boys hauled it down in 
large, crude sleds on the ice. The corn was 
paid for in Ijills on the Flint Rapids Bank. 
When these bills were taken to Flint, it was 
found the "wild-cat" bank had failed the day 
before, and the pay for a whole year's labor 
had been lost! That same winter the Indians 
were dying by hundreds from smallpox, and as 
few were well enough to hunt or fish, they were 
actually starving. Chief Ton-dog-a-ne, sage 
warrior and friend of the pale faces, was among 
the first to cross the great river. Despite the 
loss of their entire crop of corn through the 
failure of the Flint "wild-cat" bank, the Mc- 
Cormicks gave liberally of all they had to the 
starving red men. Potatoes, corn, beans. 




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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



67 



pumpkins and sqimshes were piled up at tlie far 
end of die Indian field, so that the Indians 
could get them without endangering the health 
of the settlers. When spring came and the 
epidemic abated, the Indians showed their ap- 
preciation of the settler's kindness by giving 
him a lease without any remuneration for 99 
years on the 640 acres he occupied. Judge 
Devenport executed the legal documents. 

In September of that year the treaty was 
made with the Indians for their entire reser- 
vation. They refused to sell their lands, unless 
"the wdiite man with the big heart" would be 
secure on his 640 acres, which they had given 
him in recognition for his help in their hour of 
dire need. Henry R. Schoolcraft, superintend- 
ent of Indian ati'airs, drew up the treaty, prom- 
ising to secure McCormick's rights, but when 
the treaty was finally signed, sealed and deliv- 
ered, that clause was found missing. In 1840 
the government sold the tract, and the McCor- 
micks were unceremoniously ejected from the 
land they had made productive through all 
those years of privation, toil and danger. 

What was a loss to that pioneer family 
proved a blessing to Bay County, for in 1S41 
the McCormicks removed to their original des- 
tination, the banks of the Lower Saginaw. 
Undaunted by the vicissitudes of a long series 
of unfortunate events; disinherited by his 
father liecause he dared to choose his own help- 
meet ; defrauded out of the earnings of many 
years of hard work by the dishonesty of friends 
wliiim he had trusted ; driven into the wilder- 
ness with his infant children and frail wife to 
begin life anew under the most trying circum- 
stances ; and now, after carving a farm out of 
the forest in his nld age, dri\-en e\'en from that 
forlorn hope by the strong ami of the govern- 
ment, lor which he had done so much as an ad- 
vance guard in the wilderness; such was the 



fate of this sturdy pioneer! But his spirits 
were undaunted and his energies still keen. 

Aided by his energetic sons, Mr. McCor- 
mick once more packed up his earthl}'^ posses- 
sions and moved them by river to Portsmouth, 
now the south end of Bay City. 

With a keen eye for business, the sturdy 
Scotchman looked on the majestic pines tower- 
ing all about him, he listened to the stories of 
the unlimited pine supply of Northern Michi- 
gan, as told by the Indians and pale face trad- 
ers. He conversed with late arrivals from 
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York 
and the East. He learned that a multitude 
were crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Eu- 
rope, seeking a New World, where personal 
liberty was established, and great opportunities 
awaited the industrious immigrants. Cities 
were building up, and the wave of immigration 
was spreading resistlessly Westward. The polit- 
ical unrest in Germany and Central Europe 
was sending a most desirable class of people 
to America, and most of these were going into 
the interior, determined to create homes for 
themselves in the virgin forests and prairies. 
Building homes and warehouses required lum- 
ber, and here was as fine timber as the sun ever 
shone upon. Then here was the great river, 
yonder the broad expanse of Saginaw Bay, an 
open door to the Great Lakes, opening an easy 
channel to the North, East and South, for the 
ships of commerce. With the eye of a seer he 
recognized the great opporutnities offered by 
the lumber industry to this beautiful vallev. 

He found an idle saw^mill in the little settle- 
ment of Portsmouth, erected in 1837 by the 
selfsame All:)ert Miller, who had helped to 
bring Mrs. McCormick and the children to her 
husband in their fir.st clearing on the Flint 
River in 1832. The boys of those years were 
men now, in the full vigor of hardy manhood, 



68 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and brighter days dawned for the long suffer- 
ing family. B. K. Hall willingly sold his in- 
terest in the idle mill to James jNIcCormick, 
for during those years of panic following the 
"wild-cat" bank failures and still wilder land 
speculation, there was no demand for lumber 
in the \'alley or out of it. The McCormicks 
placed the sawmill in running order, arranged 
to sell their output to James Busby, brother-in- 
law to the late James Fraser, of Detroit, for 
$8 per thousand, for clear pine, one-third down, 
the balance on long time credits, and started 
the machinery. Capt. George Ral>y, in the 
old "Conneaut Packet." carried the first cargo 
of lumber out of the Saginaw River, contain- 
ing 40,000 feet of pine cut by the McCormicks" 
mill. They sold clear lumber at the mill to the 
Trombleys and others for $10 in store trade. 

At such prices and untler such conditions, 
these pioneer lumbermen could not amass for- 
tunes, as did their successors in that line of 
business in the years to follow. These pioneers 
merely blazed a way for the generation that 
was to follow them. Well has it been said of 
them, that they came 20 years too soon to be- 
come rich. But in the fullness of time they had 
a work to do, for by their perseverance, priva- 
tions, hardships and industry, this valley was 
opened to the world, and made to blossom as 
a rose. 

Typical of his age and generation was 
James McCormick. Too brave and stout- 
hearted to let succeeding disasters daunt his 
spirits, the wilderness merely roused his best 
efforts. Obstacles were made only to be over- 
come. Life was work and work was life. E\-en 
in his declining years he was blazing the way 
for his children and children's children. 

Ere we take up the thread of narrative and 
resume the story of the development of this 
county, it will be well to note the closing scenes 
in the lives of these estimable pathfinders. For 



five years James McCormick assisted his sons 
in the sawmill, and then death hushed his ster- 
ling heart forever. His devoted wife, who had 
uricomplainingly left ease and comfort l)ehind, 
who had carried her children into the wilder- 
ness, given life to others in the crude log cabin 
in the \-aIley, and raised and educated them all 
to the best of her ability, survived him by 16 
years. She dispensed her hospitality in the 
old homestead in Portsmouth until 1854. when 
she ga\'e up the duties of the household and re- 
tired for well-merited rest and repose with her 
children. She died at the home of her daugh- 
ter, Mrs. John Malone, in Taymouth, Saginaw 
County. July 22, 1862. Her life was like that 
of a bright star, illuminating the wilderness. 
Pioneer husband and wife sleep side l:)y side in 
Pine Ridge Cemetery. Over their sepulchre 
kind hands have raised a suitable monument 
with the following inscription : "To the Mem- 
ory of James and Ellen McCormick, Pio- 
neers of the Saginaw Valley. They pitched 
their tent in the wilderness in 1832, and 
planted a vineyard ; but the Master called them 
home ere they gathered the fruit !" An honest 
/nail is tJic noblest zeork of God ! 

The venerable couple had nine children who 
grew to maturity ; Robert is a prosperous far- 
mer in Illinois. Joseph went to Kentucky in 
183 1, and later settled in Kansas, where he 
died more than 20 years ago. Sarah, the third 
daughter, married Medor Trombley, the Ports- 
mouth Indian trader, on August 26, 1847, a 
year after her father's death. The wedding 
was a simple affair, in keeping with the sim- 
plicity of their lives and the times. They started 
housekeeping at once in the frame building, 
erected by Medor Trombley in 1835. Seven 
children came to bless their union, among them 
Mrs. L. F. Rose and Mrs. John Greening, of 
Bay City. Archibald L.. the hero who ga\-e 
his life for the Union at Kenesaw Mountain, 



AND REPRESEXTATIX'E CITIZENS. 



69 



was the fifth son. Elizabeth, the second daugh- 
ter, married Orrin Kinney, a prominent farmer 
and well-known pioneer of this county. They 
still reside in the family homestead on Cass ave- 
nue, surrounded by their children and children's 
children. j\.nn, the first daughter, married Jolm 
Malone, of Taymouth township, Saginaw 
County, where they settled on government 
lands, entered in 1838. The youngest son. 
Andrew V. McCormick, the first wdiite child 
born in Taymouth township (on December 30, 
1836), went to Illinois in 1854. served in the 
Union Army during the Civil War, and later 
became a prosperous farmer in Kansas. 

James J. McCormick, the third son, shared 
in all the hardships and toil of the family's 
homebuilding in the Saginaw Valley. His 
rifle supi^lied the venison for the larder in the 
log cabin. He it was who transported the sup- 
plies to and from the homestead in the wilder- 
ness. Equally at home on horseback as in 
canoe, and knowing every Indian trail for miles 
around, he was much sought after as a guide 
by the land lookers. Born in Albany. New 
York, in January. 1817, he early evinced sound 
business judgment, and at the death of his 
father in 1846 he carried fin the sawmill busi- 
ness in Portsmouth. While visiting his brother 
Joseph in Kentucky, in 1839, he met. wooed 
and won Jane Sheldon, who proved a fitting 
helpmeet during those ])ioneer days. She died 
in 1854. Two sons and one daughter (after- 
ward Mrs. Edioni H. Bassett, her husband 
being at the head of the dry goods firm of 
Bassett, Seed & Company) survived her. Their 
eldest son also enlisted in the Union Army 
during the Civil War, where he contracted an 
ailment which caused his death in 1867. 

The indomitable will and enterprise of 
James J. McCormick did much to develop the 
lumber industry of the valley. When he and 
his father bought the Hall mill in Portsmouth 



in 1841, everything was at a standstill. Most 
men would have waited for something- to turn 
up. Not so these McCormicks. They went 
to Detroit and sought a market for the pine 
they had cut. At home the settlers had neither 
money nor courage to erect new buildings. The 
McCormicks stepped in and put up buildings 
on long term contracts, with the luniljcr they 
cut, their early customers including Hon. 
James G. Birney, and the famous Indian trad- 
ers and interpreters, Capt. Joseph F. Marsac, 
Medor Trombley and Joseph Trombley. This 
pioneer sawmill operator bought Captain Mar- 
sac's cottage and a parcel of land, by furnishing 
the lumber for a more palatial home for the 
veteran Indian fighter. The friendship which 
sprang up between James J. McCormick and 
the late Judge Albert I^Iiller on the Indian trail 
to Detroit back in 1832, ripened into a business 
partnership, when in 1848 they jointly oper- 
ated their little sawmill. None but the early 
settlers can know' the ceaseless round of toil 
those men endured in cutting lumber in that 
mill. Both took iheir turns at the saw, and 
fixed up their books and other business matters 
when their other employees slept. 

Then the gold fever swept over the land, 
and with thousands of others from e\-ery com- 
munity in the country, and from every walk of 
life, James J. McCormick determined to "get 
rich quick" in the famous gold El Dorado of 
California. Having provided for the care of 
his wife and children, and arrangetl his busi- 
ness affairs, he bade them all farewell, and once 
more turned his face resolutely Westward. 
Having procured a team of oxen and loaded 
a wagon with the necessities required for the 
trip, he ferried them across the Saginaw River 
on a raft of hewn timbers, in March, 1849. 
and started solitary and alone across the un- 
known continent to the gold fields of Califor- 
nia. An old acquaintance, Alfred Goyer. of 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Genessee County, accompanied him part of the 
way. Later they met at a spring in Cahfornia 
where they were watering their horses, but 
both had aged so, that they did not recognize 
one another until they spoke of their former 
residences. They shared each otlier's fortunes 
and misfortunes in the gold district after that, 
returning to the Saginaw Valley in 1851. 
Their experience had been identical with thous- 
ands of other gold seekers. Hardships and 
dangers were their portion and the reward fell 
far below expectations. 

The hardy adventurer saved enough of the 
gold dust to begin the lumber business on a 
more extensive scale on his return, building 
a new sawmill near his residence, which he 
operated successfully until 1871, when he sold 
it to the Webster Company. In 1868 he erected 
the McCormick Block on Water street. He 
owned considerable real estate. He was a mem- 
ber of the first Council of Bay City and was 
elected mayor in 1869. He had a wide circle 
of devoted personal friends. He was a 33rd 
degree Mason. 

William R. McCormick, the fourth son, 
was born at Albany, New York, .August 16, 
1822. He was 10 years old when his family 
made the perilous trip to the wilds of Michigan. 
For many years their only neiglibors were In- 
dians, and his only playmates were these red 
children of the forest. Their nearest neigh- 
bors at that time were Charles and Humphrey 
McLean, who lived 15 miles away, where Pine 
Run is now located. He often accompanied 
the Indians on their periodical hunting trips, 
and when but 15 years old was employed as in- 
terpreter and trader by an independent fur 
trading company on the Saginaw River. Dur- 
ing the winter of 1837-38 he did chores for 
Major Mosley, who commanded the old stock- 
ade fort on the Saginaw, where he received 
such schooling as that young settlement of- 



fered. In 1839 he determined to see the world, 
so against his father's wish he started on foot 
for his brother's home iiear Vincennes, Indiana. 
He took the Indian trail to Detroit, then fol- 
lowed the corduroy road as far as LaPorte, 
Indiana, and finally reached his destination, 
footsore, hungry and penniless. Having satis- 
fied his craving for travel and sightseeing, he 
returned to the parental roof in 1840. He ac- 
companied his father's family to Portsmouth 
in 1 84 1, where he assisted in the work in the 
sawmill until 1846. He spent a few years in 
Albany, New York, where he married Angel- 
ica Wayne, and then came back to tlie valley 
he loved to call his home. In i860 a stock com- 
pany was formed by Judge Albert Miller, to 
bore for salt. William R. IMcCormick was 
chosen secretary and general manager. He 
superintended the boring, and at a depth of 600 
feet the flow of brine was struck, which has 
ever since furnished the raw material for one 
of the valley's leading industries. This was the 
first salt well in Bay County. For many years 
he was active in the lumber and real estate busi- 
ness. He shared with Judge Miller for many 
years the distinction of being the oldest living 
pioneers of Bay County. He lived to see Bay 
City grow from a settlement of two log cabins 
to a prosperous community of over 20,000 in- 
habitants, whose buzzing saws were heard 
around the world, wherever the product of 
forest and stream entered into the creation of 
homes and the construction of ships. 

For many years William R. McCormick 
collected data and relics pertaining to the early 
history of Bay County. We owe much to his 
pen. Michigan owes much of its pioneer col- 
lection to his foresight and forethought. That 
the lives and deeds of his parents and family 
are so well-known and so well-preserved, is 
entirelv due to his memorandum book, which 
gives to us the most exact and interesting re- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



71 



view of pioneer life 70 years ago. His anec- 
dotes of the early settlements and the Indians 
as he found them furnish one of the brightest 
chapters in the annals of Michigan, and give 
to men and events in this rich valley their 
proper place and proportion. Space forbids 
recounting all of his inimitable stories and rem- 
iniscences. A few will bear repeating, as a 
fleeting glimpse into an eventful and yet almost 
forgotten past. 

In 1833 he accompanied Colonel Marshall 
on an exploring trip to the mouth of the Sagi- 
naw River and along the west shore of Sagi- 
naw Bay. Starting from Flint during the hot 
summer months, they soon struck a shallow 
spot in the river. A young Indian warrior 
helped them in getting their canoe around the 
low water, and the brave was given a swig of 
fire-water, which every pioneer carried in those 
days. They paddled 12 miles down the river 
and landed to prepare dinner. To their utter 
astonishment, ere long they perceived the self- 
same young Indian approaching their campfire. 
He told them he had come 12 miles to get an- 
other drink of the white man's firewater ! Such 
was the craving for liquor which consumed 
Poor Lo ! 

Paddling down the river, they passed 
through great swarms of wild ducks, the an- 
cestors of the flocks, which even now, in ever 
diminishing numbers, visit the shores of river 
and bay at certain seasons of the year. In the 
summer of 1833 the river was fairly black with 
them. A Chippewa Indian from the Wenonah 
village had 37 ducks, which he said he had 
killed with seven shots from a "squaw gun." 
If that old blunderbuss did such execution one 
can imagine what would have happened had 
he used a modern repeating shotgun. 

The first habitation they saw, after leaving 
the fort stockade of Saginaw behind them, was 
the log cabin at Zilwaukee, known as the Mosby 



House. Paddling swiftly with the current 
down stream, they soon passed the log cabin 
where the Indian squaw of the Frenchman, 
Louis Masho, and his half-breed children were 
fishing in the shade of a huge elm tree, where 
Bousfield's mammoth woodenware works are 
now located. Almost three miles further down 
stream they passed the log cabin of Leon Tnmi- 
bley, now the corner of Fourth avenue and 
Water street. They did not see another living 
soul until they reached the mouth of the Kaw- 
kawlin River, where an Indian trading shack 
was located, which was always a favorite meet- 
ing place of the redskins. 

Colonel Marshall participated that night in 
a big powwow at an Indian village on the Kaw- 
kawlin, where the pipe of peace made the 
rounds, wise old Indians "orated" in a lan- 
guage their guest could not understand, and 
where considerable fire-water was consumed 
and charged against future catches of fish and 
game by the reckless sons of the forest. In- 
dian games were in order the next morning, 
and young McCormick enjoyed the sport and 
the honors with the best of the young bucks. 

.Among the wise men of the tribe at this 
camp-fire was Neh-way-go, of the Tittaba- 
wassee band of Hurons. His wigwam was on 
the shore of Saginaw Bay, where the beau- 
tiful summer resort, Wenona Beach, is now 
situated. In his younger years this warrior 
had killed a son of Red Bird, a chief of the 
Flint band of Chippewas, who immediately de- 
manded his life as a forfeit under the Indians' 
crude laws. Neh-way-go presented himself at 
the mourner's wigwam, and told the assembled 
warriors he had come to pay the penalty of 
his rash deed. Baring his bosom, he was thrice 
stablied by the dead man's relatives, but none 
of the thrusts proved immediately fatal. Cov- 
ered with his own blood he hurried back to his 
own people, when one of Red Bird's band saw 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



him anfl gave him another stab in the back. 
In spite of his wounds and loss of blood, his 
faithful young wife managed to bind up 
his wounds and nursed him back to life 
and health. Indian usage was satisfied, but 
Indian hate ne\-er. While still weak from his 
terrible wounds, he visited the Indian trading- 
store of the Williams brothers on the Saginaw 
River. An Indian runner brought these tidings 
to 0-sou-wah-bon's band camped on the Titta- 
bawassee, and that burly warrior at once 
started with concealed knives to finish Neh- 
way-go. Bold as ever, the wounded Indian 
refused to enter his canoe when ordered to do 
so by Ephraim S. Williams. When the aveng- 
ing native arrived, the Williams brothers dis- 
armed him, pushed Neh-way-go into his canoe 
and his wife paddled him home, despite his pro- 
tests that he was no coward, and would meet 
the avengers. The following year, while hunt- 
ing, he met the Indian who had stabbed him in 
the back after his summary punishment, and 
Xeh- way-go promptly killed him. Black 
Beaver, a noted chief of the Chippewas, took 
him to task at an Indian payment-meeting at 
Saginaw some years after, and in the fight that 
followed. Black Bea\-er was killed. Colonel 
Stanard, commanding the army post, issued a 
warrant for Neh-way-go's arrest, liut the In- 
dian preferred death at the hands of his own 
people to arrest and imprisonment by the sol- 
diers. He told Ephraim S. \A'illiams. the In- 
dian agent, that he would present himself for 
such punishment as his tribe might inflict, but 
he never would submit to be arrested, which 
was a punishment fit only for cowards ! The 
killing of Black Beaver had spread quickly 
through the Indian villages and from them to 
the few white settlements. When the day for 
the solemn Indian funeral rites had arrived, all 
the Indians and white settlers in the valley were 
assembled on the ridge west of the river bank. 



The Indian's relatives were chanting the 
mournful funeral odes of their tribe, their faces 
streaked with black and white, symbolic of 
death and the life beyond in the happy hunt- 
ing grounds. While the several thousand silent 
watchers were intent on the mysterious cere- 
monies, Neh-way-go came strutting over from 
his camp ground. He was attired in all the 
splendor of a warrior on the war-path. His 
knife and tomahawk were in his belt, and a 
flask of whiskey hung from his girdle. He was 
prepared for the long journey to the same 
happy hunting grounds to which he had sent 
Black Beaver. With solemn mien and majes- 
tic tread he came into the circle of mourners. 
The white settlers had provided a coffin for the 
dead. On this he sat, while he filled his calu- 
met with kinnikinic, composedly puffing clouds 
of blue vapor skyward. Then he passed his 
pipe to the chief mourner, who scorned to take 
it. Next he passed his whiskey flask with the 
same solemn mien. This, too, was scorned. 
Then he sat down, opened his hunting shirt 
and bared his bosom. After a few moments 
of intense silence he addressed the mourners 
as follows : "You refuse my pipe of peace. 
You refuse to drink with me. Strike not in the 
back. Strike not and miss. The man who 
strikes and misses dies when ne.xt I meet him 
on the hunting grounds!" But no one stirred. 
No one offered to kill him. Then Neh-way-go 
arose, replaced knife and tomahawk and whis- 
key flask in his girdle, and with the same sol- 
emn mien passed straight through his enemies, 
pausing only long enough to taunt them for 
being cowards ! \\'hen young McCormick saw 
him near his wigwam on the Kawkawlin, he 
was an old and weather-beaten warrior, of 
ready wit and convivial spirits. Years after, 
he fell a victim to the implacable hate of the 
relatives of Black Beaver, being shot while 
hunting on the Ouanicassee. 



AND REPRESEXTATiVE CITIZENS. 



73 



On this same trip, Mr. AicCorniick saw, for 
the first time, tlie "Lone Tree," which was for 
years a landmark for tlie old settlers, and an 
omen for good among the Hurons. It was a 
vigorous ash tree, about two feet in diameter, 
standing solitary and alone in the prairie, where 
McGraw's prairie farm is now located. Canoe- 
ists on the ri\-er estimated by the tree they were 
two miles from Portsmouth and four miles 
from Leon Trombley's original log cabin in 
Bay City. In summer, with its rich foliage, 
and in winter amid the great white mantle of 
snow, it was alike conspicuous. And be it win- 
ter or summer, passing travelers invariably saw 
a large white owl perched in the tree-top. To 
the Indians this oavI was sacred, and a pretty 
legend was woven about the tree. Often did 
the pioneers hear the orators of the Hurons re- 
peat this legend, the most romantic inheritance 
left by them to their favorite hunting grounds 
of long ago. Ages ago, the exact number none 
could tell, a great and wise chief, Ke-wah-ke- 
won, ruled over the red people of this valley 
with love and kindness. When he felt that he 
would soon be treading the happy hunting 
grounds of the Great Spirit, he called his people 
together to bestow on them his last blessing, 
and to give them his parting admonition 
and advice. Amid the silent prairie, as yet un- 
trod by the foot of the pale face, the clans were 
gathered, mournful witnesses of the last fare- 
well of their brave and beloved chieftain. When 
he felt his pulse grow weaker, he lifted his 
voice calm and clear alxive the rushing waters 
of the stream at his feet : "j\ly children," said 
he, "the Great Spirit has called me, and I must 
obey the summons. Even now the tomahawk 
is raised to sever the last chord that binds me 
to my children! The guide stands at the door 
to convey me to the hunting grounds of my 
father in the Spirit Land. You weep, my chil- 
dren, but drv vour tears, for though I leave 



you now, yet will my spirit bird ever watch 
over you. I will whisper to you in the evening 
breeze, and when the morning comes you will 
know that 1 have been with you through the 
night. But the Good Spirit beckons me, and I 
must hasten. Let my lx)dy be laid in a quiet 
spot, with my tomahawk and pipe by mv side. 
You need not fear that the wolf will disturb 
my rest, for the Great Spirit, I feel, will place 
a watch over me. Meet me in the Spirit Land, 
my children — farewell !" They buried him in a 
lonely spot in the prairie, on the opposite side of 
the great ri\-er, with his face toward the rising 
sun. His last resting place was never dis- 
turbed I)y bird or beast. So had the Great 
Spirit ordered it. 

In the course of time, a tree arose over the 
grave, and spread its branches over it like a 
protecting wing, and in that tree lived a beauti- 
ful white owl, which the Great Spirit had sent 
to watch over it. So long as this "Lone Tree" 
stood, and the owl watched over it, the In- 
dians of the valley would thri\e and prosper, 
but when the sacred owl would depart, their 
tribes would become scattered, and their race 
pass away. Strangely enough, all this came 
to pass. A great flood in 1838 laid bare the 
roots of the tree, and covered the prairie for 
miles and miles with water, killing all the trees 
that had withstood the previous rampages of 
the Saginaw. In 1837 the Indians gave up by 
treaty their last great hunting grounds in Mich- 
igan. During that very twelvemonth half 
their number were killed l)y smallpox, and 
their tribes became weak and scattered. The 
dead ash tree stood for several years longer, 
the white owl still keeping its vigil over the 
gra\e of Ke-wah-ke-won. In 1841. James J. 
McCormick came with his father's family to 
the wilderness in Portsmouth, as we have nar- 
rated. He knew nothing of the legend center- 
ing a1)out that "Lone Tree." and the big white 



74 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



owl perched ever in its decaying branches. 
While out hunting ducks on the river shore 
and marsh, he shot and killed the owl. A few 
years after, the tree was prostrated in a storm, 
and the last vestige of it soon disappeared. 
With it disappeared the Indians. They lin- 
gered for a time about their old haunts, where 
once they had been undisputed masters. But 
the colony of pale faces was growing stronger, 
game was becoming more and more scarce, 
and Poor Lo must retreat further into the 
Northern wilds. About 1840 the Philadelphia 
Evening Post published a poem on the "Lone 
Tree" and its messenger from ]Manitou the 
Great, watching over the weal and woe of the 
Indians of the valley of the Sauks, written by 
Miss Mather, daughter of a prominent pioneer 
of Flint. Hon. Artemas Thayer, of Flint, was 
enjoying with his bride and two friends, in- 
cluding Miss Mather, his w^edding trip, on the 
ice and snow covering Saginaw River, from 
Flint to Portsmouth, when they saw the "Lone 
Tree" and the far-famed white owl. Shortly 
after writing that poem, Miss Mather died 
while visiting at the home of Hon. Horace 
Greeley, in New York. 

William R. McCormick delighted to repeat 
these weird Indian legends around his cozy 
fireside in after years. He was also indefati- 
gable in gathering the relics which were found 
in large numbers in the sand hills and mounds 
of this part of the State. The oldest frame 
house in Bay City was built by the Trombleys 
in 1835, and in 1842 this was purchased by 
William R. McCormick's father. It stood then 
in a broad clearing on the western slope of an 
extensive mound, and is to-day the venerable 
old Center House on the corner of 24th and 
Water streets. In those mounds the McCor- 
micks found many skeletons, much broken pot- 
tery of strange make, stone knives, stone axes, 
stone arrow-heads and stone spears. Most 



of the relics found in these and other mounds 
of this valley were presented by Mr. McCor- 
mick to the State Pioneer Collection, to muse- 
ums all o\-er the country, and to the Smithso- 
nian Institute at Washington. 

In company with kindred spirits, who loved 
to search these unexplored river banks for 
traces of other races, and for relics of a for- 
gotten past, he searched through every nook 
and corner of this county. A review of their 
findings cannot fail to interest even the layman. 
He was a confirmed believer in the theory, that 
this valley was at some preliistoric period the 
advanced position of the mysterious race of 
Mound Builders. He saw these mounds in a 
state of nature 70 years ago. He saw them 
plowed o\'er. dug up to admit foundations for 
large modern buildings, and a few sand ridges 
carried away bodily for building purposes. 

One of the highest elevations in Bay Coun- 
ty is the mound or ridge at the east approach 
to the Lafayette avenue bridge. In IQ05 we 
find on it the massive buildings of the Bay City 
Brewing Company, a hotel, livery stable, the 
venerable old McCormick homestead, and, on 
the northern spur, the palatial home of Ex- 
Mayor George D. Jackson. The elevation com- 
prises about two acres. When William R. ]Mc- 
mick first savv^ this conspicuous landmark, just 
70 years ago, he found timber all about it, with 
the exception of a duck pond in the rear of the 
mound, about an acre in extent. In excavating 
for the massive brewery, Indian skeletons were 
found four to five feet below the surface, while 
five feet deeper down were found skeletons of 
another and apparently an older race, buried 
with oddly-formed burned pottery and quaint 
stone and copper implements. Some of these 
implements showed that this strange prehis- 
toric people had the art of hardening copper, 
and of working in metals. Unfortunately 
these skeletons had crumbled awav to such an 



f^' 




AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



77 



extent, tliat a toucli, or a hreath of air even, 
left notliing but a dust heap. In grading 22nd 
street, tlirougli the north end of this mound, 
tliree skeletons of very large stature were 
found at a (Icpt!i of 11 feet, with large earthen 
pots placed at the head of each sarcophagus. 

A large circular mound existed for many 
years near the C. J. Smith sawmill in tlie I'irst 
Ward of the West Side, about 100 feet in diam- 
eter and from three to six feet above the level 
of the surrounding meadows. Old settlers 
found many strange stone weapons and other 
implements by grubbing around in this mound. 
It was leveled down and the dirt used 
to fill in a part of the river front, hence every 
trace of it is lost. 

On the property of Hon. James G. Birney, 
at the west approach to the Michigan Central 
Railroad bridge, was another similar mound, 
but much higher than the Smith mound. The 
skeletons were mucii better preserved than any 
of the others, and the skulls w^ere quite unlike 
those found in Indian graves. One well-pre- 
served skull, with a circular hole through the 
forehead, made by some sharp instrument, 
which undoubtedly caused death, was presented 
by Mr. McCormick to J. Morgan Jennison, of 
Philadelphia. Some boys found an exquisitely 
worked canoe, of silver, about five inches long, 
with the ends dipped in gold. A kettle made of 
copper, wrought into shape by hammering, 
having no seams, was also found in this mound, 
and placed with Mr. Jennison's collection in 
the State Capitol. 

Another mound was a half mile south of 
this one, and several skeletons were dug from 
its side by Charles E. Jennison, one of the few- 
pioneers of those early days still living in Bay 
City. Copper kettles and other implements 
were also found in this mound. 

.A half mile further south we find, even to 
this dav, one of the most commanding views of 



the river. Early settlers found a spring of 
water here, clear as crystal, and just shade 
enough to make it an ideal camping ground for 
the Indians. Here, according to tradition, was 
the main portion of the Sauk tribe when they 
were wiped out by the confederated tribes. 
Here they made their most desperate stand 
against overwhelming numbers. And here 
their conquerors, the Hurons, would assemble 
all their tribes in tlie State for their perennial 
feasts, dances and councils. The main elevation 
covered three acres, and, like the McCormick 
mound almost directly across the river from it, 
there was a deep depression southwest of its 
abrupt sides. Down in that dejiression the soil 
is a clay loam mixed with black sand. North 
of the mound is a ridge of yellow sand, but 
the mound and the slope on its northern face 
were of the same soil as the facings of the 
mound. This led the explorers to conclude 
that the mounds were built artificially ages be- 
fore the white race came to this country. Rail- 
roads dug up this mound for ballasting pur- 
poses, and the village authorities of Wenona 
cut a street through it, so that little remains of 
the original mound as the early settlers found 
it. During these excavations in this Fitzhugh 
mound, many relics were found, showing con- 
clusively that it had been built by a strange 
people many centuries before. Among numer- 
ous skeletons were found quaint ornaments of 
silver, broken pottery, some of it with primitive 
ornamentation, together with the usual large 
numljer of burned stones and stone weapons. 
The forts were \ery identical, usually from 
three to six acres in extent, with walls four to 
eight feet high, and 10 to 12 feet across at the 
top. The form of the mounds indicates that 
they are largely artificial, and with the primi- 
tive tools at the disposal of diose ancient people 
must have required years to complete. The 
best proof of their construction by a human 



78 



HISTORY OF BAY COL'XTY 



race is the depression near each hih or mound, 
whose soil corresponds in each instance with 
the top dressing- of tliese mounds, although the 
original surface soil is often of entirely differ- 
ent composition. Then their general plan and 
character show clearly that there was method 
and system in their work. Michael Dailey, the 
old Indian trader, Capt. Joseph F. Marsac, the 
much-traveled Indian fighter and explorer, and 
others, who often visited the Rifle and Au Sable 
rivers, reported a number of similar mounds 
and fortifications along those streams and their 
tributaries. 

The JNIound Builders appear to have had 
their outpost at the Straits of ]Mackinac, and to 
have been .particularly numerous in the Sagi- 
naw Valley. Along the Cass and Flint rivers 
a number of mounds have been systematically 
explored, and the relics and skeletons added to 
the collection of antiquities. These relics are 
never found except in these elevations or 
mounds. William R. McCormick had his own 
theory about the many burned and l^roken stones 
invariably found in these mounds. He con- 
tended that their pottery would not stand the 
action of fire, hence they would heat stones, 
and cast them into their pottery to boil their 
water. Michael Dailey and others, who were 
fishing near Duck Island in Lake Huron, found 
kettles, bowls, weapons and implements very 
similar to those found in these mounds. Cer- 
tain it is, that the oldest remains of civilization 
in America are those of the IMound Builders. 
Their vast earthworks in the Ohio and Missis- 
sippi valleys must ha\e taken many generations 
to complete. Yet not even the faintest tradi- 
tion remains to tell who built them. That 
they were a very civilized race there 
can be no question. They must have 
been mentally far superior to the savage 
races that supplanted them. Their sway ex- 
tended at one time or other from Mexico to 



Lake Superior. In tlie copper mines of our 
L'pper I'eninsula are found old shafts, with the 
wedges and chisels they used at their work, 
together with detached masses of copper ore. 
.-Ml our antiquarians &re agreed that their 
works in Michigan were mere outposts. The 
main works are in ihe South. There are found 
pottery, ornaments of silver, of bone, of mica, 
and of sea shells from the Gulf of Mexico. 
Lance-heads, a.xes, adzes, hammers and knives 
of stone, exactly like those found in Bay 
County, are found in those great earthworks of 
the South. Spear-heads, lances and arrow- 
heads made of obsidian, a volcanic substance 
only found and used in ^lexico, prove that they 
had some connection with that country. Crude 
spinning implements found in all these mounds 
prove that they knew the art of weaving and 
spinning, which was unknown to the Indians. 

Some historians contend that these Mound 
Builders came originally from Mexico, and 
that owing to climatic conditions they were 
eventually driven back to their original homes, 
and that they are the ancestors of the Toltecs 
of Mexican history. Toltecs means architects 
or builders, which name would seem to have 
been a fitting one for that industrious race. 
Other historians contend that the entire race 
of Mound Builders, was destroyed either by a 
great flood, an epidemic of disease, or a war 
to the death with a more primitive, but more 
numerous and more powerful race. But as we 
read the conjectures of historians and students 
of this ancient race, we cannot help but feel 
that even these prehistoric Mound Builders ap- 
preciated the splendid location of this valley 
for all the needs and comforts of the human 
race. 

Nowhere in the Northwest are there as 
many relics of these prehistoric people to be 
found, than in this section of Michigan. Hunt- 
ing for these evidences of an earlier civilization 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



79 



tornied. fur many of tlie early pioneers here, 
an exhilarating' diversion. They wearied of 
the chase and fishing became nauseating after 
a few years. Places of recreaticin there were 
none. Communicalion with the outside world 
was irregular, and confined to the receipt of 
newspapers often weeks and months out of date, 
and at their best containing but little real news. 
The settlements for years were few in number 
and widely separated, as if each new arrival 
sought solitude above all else. Often for weeks 
at a time these rugged settlers did not see a 
living person. Hence they devoted much of 
their leisure time to exploring the vicinity of 
their new homes. Then when they did meet 
at one another's firesides, they would exchange 
ideas on the many odd and strange things their 
investigations of a country that was entirely 
new to them had brought forth. E\-en in re- 
cent years many quaint relics, mostly of the 
Indian period, have been found along the riv- 
ers and the bay shore. Justice of the Peace 
Frank G. Walton, of the West Side, has a 
stone battle-axe that is believed to be the largest 
ever found in Michigan. It was picked up on 
the shore of the Kawkawlin River, which was 
always a favorite hunting ground for the abor- 
igines. Unfortunately, the residents of Bay 
County have never had a permanent pioneer 
society, and consequently there has been no 
system in these researches. The demand for 
more room to accommodate the increasing 
business of Bay City has caused so many im- 
provements, that most of the old landmarks and 
mounds have been obliterated and forgotten. 
Little is known by the present generation 
of the names and deeds of our pioneers. At 
long intervals, outside enterprise gives to us 
a record of those early days, brought down to 
their respective periods, but that is all. This 
is not as it should be. The lives and deeds of 
our pathfinders and pioneers should never \)c 



given over to oblivion. Their noble self-sacri- 
fice, amid the dangers and hardships of life in 
the unknown wilderness, should pro\-e an inspi- 
ration to the coming generations. Bay County 
should have an active pioneer society to keep 
alive the spirit of our forefathers, to treasure 
the stirring records of our early history and 
to delve deeper into the wealth of research 
still possible in this valley, beloved of the an- 
cients. 

No history of Bay County would be com- 
plete without a mention of the greatest of the 
Chippewa chiefs of the last century. One of 
the numerous bands of that tribe of the race 
of Hurons had their wigwams for many years 
on the banks of the Tittabaw-assee. a worthy- 
branch of the Saginaw. Aliout 1794 there was 
born in that band, O-ge-ma-ke-ga-to, one of 
the greatest chieftains of his race. His trite 
consisted of a dozen bands, each headed by a 
hereditary chief, and these chiefs in turn elected 
the head chief. In 18 19, although but 25 
years old, O-ge-ma-ke-ga-to was chosen head 
chief, and was the leader of the Indians in the 
councils with General Cass, then Governor of 
jMichigan Territory. He was then in the full 
vigor of young manhood, over six feet in 
height and, according to General Cass, at once 
a perfect type of the American Indian, an elo- 
quent orator, and a born leader of his race. 
The pale face trappers who had married In- 
dian squaws, and the half-breeds living with 
the Chippewas, together with many of the 
minor chiefs, were in favor of giving up at 
once all their possessions to the government, 
in return for a libera! money consideration. 
O-ge-ma-ke-ga-to alone opposed giving up 
their lands. In an address to more than 2,000 
of his people, he held them spellbound for two 
hours. To General Cass and his staff he said : 

"You cannot know our needs, ^'ou do not 
know our condition. Our people wonder what 



8o 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



has brought you so far from your homes. Your 
young men have invited us to come and hght 
the council fires; we are here to smoke the pipe 
of peace, but not to sell our lands. Our Ameri- 
can Father wants ihem. Our English Father 
treated us better. He never asked for our 
lands. You flock to our shores; our waters 
grow warm: our lands melt like a cake of ice. 
Our possessions grow smaller and smaller. 
The warm wave of the white man rolls in on us 
and melts us away. Our women reproach us. 
and our children want homes. Shall we sell 
from under them the spot where they spread 
their blankets? We have not called you here; 
yet do we smoke with you the pipe of peace." 
He alone held out for the 40,000 acre reser- 
vation in which was included the hunting 
ground of his own band and, despite all that 
General Cass and his interpreters could do, 
O-ge-ma-ke-ga-to had his way, before the 
treaty was finally ratified. He loved this val- 
ley, and wanted it kept forever as the hunting 
ground of his people. Many stories of his in- 
domitable will and bravery were told by the 
early pioneers. About 1835 two Indians of 
his band proceeded to settle a quarrel with their 
e\-er ready hunting knives, while under the in- 
fluence of liquor. O-ge-ma-ke-ga-to jumped 
between them, and with his body stopped a cut 
intended by one of the warriors for the other. 
A portion of his liver protruded from the terri- 
ble cut in his side. While being nursed back to 
health, he sliced ofi the protruding piece of 
liver with his knife, threw it on the coals of the 
fire in his wigwam, and after roasting it. 
calmly ate it. To the warriors about him he 
remarked, that if there was a braver man in the 
Chippewa nation than he, he would like to see 
him. Incredible though this story may ap- 
pear at this distance, it was vouched for 70 
years ago by Joseph Trombley, Ephraim S. 



Williams, and Peter Grewett, Indian traders 
of that period, and Mr. McCormick and Judge 
Albert Miller never doubted its accuracy. They 
knew this warrior, knew of his many other 
reckless deeds of daring, and never questioned 
the veracity of this incident. Strangeh' enough 
this operation hastened his cure. It also 
strengthened the hold he had on his tribesmen, 
for the Indian admires reckless daring above 
all other virtues. 

O-ge-ma-ke-ga-to was one of the seven 
chiefs who went to Washington in 1837 to 
negotiate the sale of their remaining reserva- 
tion. The sage chief recognized that the set- 
tlers were coming into that part of Michigan in 
such numbers, that its usefulness as a hunting 
ground would soon be gone forever, and he 
made his last stand for such favorable terms of 
sale, as he could command. President Thomas 
Jefferson rather admired the eloquent and im- 
posing warrior, and he presented him with a 
solid silver medal, of oblong shape, five inches 
long, bearing this inscription : "Presented to 
O-ge-ma-ke-ga-to by Thotuas Jefferson." On 
one side was the heroic figure of an Indian 
chief, and on the other a cut of the President. 
Red Jacket, the famous chief of the Senecns, 
was the only other living Indian who recei\'ed 
this mark of distinction from Thomas Jeft'er- 
son. After this treaty was ratified at Flint, 
where his eloquence again smoothed the way 
for a peaceful settlement, he did everything in 
his power to see that the Indians observed their 
solemn obligation to the white settlers, who 
then began to swarm over his old hunting 
ground. Yet it galled the proud chief to see 
his people dri\-en to a mere corner of their for- 
mer possessions. To the settlers it seemed 
often as if he courted death, and not infre- 
quently he resorted to strong fire-water to 
quench the anguish of his stout old heart. With 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



8r 



heroic self-sacrifice he worked for his people 
when the Grim Reaper swept them away by 
scofes (luring the smallpox epidemic. 

He did not long survive the misfortunes 
of his tribe. While camping with his band 
near the Fitzhugh mound on tlie west side of 
the river, he felt his time had come. He called 
his people around him, and bade them farewell. 
His last words were for peace, and good-will 
to the settlers, many of whom he had learned 
to love and respect. He had loved this valley, 
and wished to be buried on the highest point 
of this vicinity. During the closing days of 
1839 he was buried with great pomp and cere- 
mony on the McCormick mound on the east 
side of the river. 

Joseph Trombley, who had known and re- 
spected the old warrior for many years, fur- 
nished the lumber for the coffin. Some years 
later when lumber became plentiful and cheap 
in the valley, Mr. McCormick erected a little 
house over his last resting place, with a flag- 
stafif over it, that could be seen for a long dis- 
tance. Years rolled by, the little house was 
neglected and finally obliterated by people who 
built near by. In the course of time the mound 
was plowed over and crops grew over his 
sepulchre. In August, 1877, the city had 
grown to such dimensions, that the mound was 
wanted for building purposes. In excavating 
for a foundation, portions of a wooden box 
were found, in which was a skeleton wearing 
the uniform of a colonel of the Continental 
Army. Then it was recalled that 0-ge-ma-ke- 
ga-to had been buried there, wearing the uni- 
form President Jeflferson had gi\en him during 
his visit to Washington in 1837. The uniform 
was in a good state of preservation. His copper 
kettle was bottomless and badly demoralized 
by rust, but his tomahawk, knife and pipes 
were still by his side. The medal has never 
l>een found. The man who found the remains 



kept them on exhibition until the Indians of the 
vicinity protested against this indignity to their 
great chief. By their request, Mr. McCormick 
buried the remains in his own dooryard, and a 
stone furnished by E. B. Denison marks the 
last resting place of O-ge-ma-ke-ga-to, the last 
great chief of the Chippewas. 

After the death of Ton-dog-a-ne and O-ge- 
ma-ke-ga-to, Nau-qua-chic-a-me became the 
head of the Chippewas. He wandered about 
with his band, following the run of the fish 
and the little game left in these parts, finally 
settling with his band at Saganing, where he 
died in October, 1874. 

Much missionary work was done among 
the natives after they retired permanently to 
their own settlements and reservations, and 
many became devout converts to the Christian 
faith. James Cloud was for many years the 
missionary among his tribesmen on the Kaw- 
kawlin. His work was one of helpfulness to 
his people and of love for his Master. For 
his years of labor he received nothing. So even 
in matters of religion these poor natives are 
left largely to their own resources, which are 
pitiable enough in the light of the 20th cen- 
tury. 

The early settlers saw more of the Indians 
than they did of their own race, and conse- 
quently were much dependent upon them for 
many of the little acts of kindness that make 
life worth the living. Judge Albert Miller was 
always one of the best friends the Indians of 
this vicinity had, and he never wearied of 
championing their cause. He always con- 
tended that Poor Lf) left to himself was not at 
all a wicked or mean per.son. He often related 
incidents in his own life to prove that the na- 
tives were lx)th honest and hospitable. During 
the winter of 1835-36 he sent some horses and 
cattle down the Ouanicassee River to feed, 
during the period of snow and ice, on the 



82 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



rushes along that river. When it was no longer 
possible to get supplies to the men who were 
in charge of the animals, the latter were left 
to shift for themselves. Mr. Miller was living 
at the time near Crow Island. In April, 1836, 
he started with B. F. Trombley across the 
flooded prairie to look after his stock. Nearly 
a foot of water covered the low lands, but this 
did not stop these hardy pioneers. They 
crossed Cheboyganing Creek, then a roaring 
torrent owing to the floods, on a fallen tree, 
and reached the Quanicassee. None of the 
horses or cattle had been stolen, although a 
few horses had died. It rained all day, and a 
cold wave, so peculiar to this region of the 
lakes, froze everything that night. Rather than 
camp out in their frozen blankets another night, 
the two pioneers started for home. On the 
prairie the water was steadily rising and freez- 
ing, so that every step soon became an agony. 
The ice would not hold them up, and this con- 
tinual breaking through soon wore out Trom- 
blev's moccasins, so he tied his mittens on his 
feet and followed closely in ^Miller's footsteps. 
But the cold was benumbing, and to make mat- 
ters worse the fallen tree had been washed 
away, and there was no way to cross Cheboy- 
ganing Creek. As a last resort. Miller gave a 
lusty Indian war-whoop and to their great relief 
this brought an Indian in his canoe, who took 
the bleeding, starved and frozen tra\-elers into 
his wigwam for the night. The two pale faces 
never forgot the terrors of that night, and next 
day when they reached Miller's cabin, two 
miles away, each looked as though he had 
passed through a serious illness. They were 
quite certain that they would have perished in 
that blizzard on the prairie, but for the timely 
help of that solitary Indian, who happened to 
be hunting ducks up-stream, and was returning 
to his lone wigwam, pitched in a grove of maple 



trees, to gather maple syrup when the weather 
should mend. 

In 1833, Judge Miller, who had been on a 
business errand to Midland, in the month of 
December, was thrown into the ice-cold water, 
while paddling down the Tittabawassee, and 
narrowly escaped drowning. He was 25 miles 
from home, and 16 miles from the nearest set- 
tler's cabin, so the prospects for drying his wet 
clothes seemed slight indeed. A few miles 
down stream he saw a lone wigwam on the 
ri\'er bank, and a lone Indian woman was pre- 
paring a meal, ^filler told her his mishap, and 
was invited to come ashore and dry himself 
as well as dine, which he gladly did. He never 
happened near an Indian's camp in all the 
years that he traveled among them, that he was 
not invited to have the best in the wigwam, 
and at night the stranger was always given the 
best place in the tepee to sleep. He did not like 
their begging or drinking propensities, which 
grew worse with the passing years, yet during 
his entire life in the valley. Judge Miller re- 
mained the steadfast friend of the wandering 
red men. 

The McCormick, Trombley and \\'illiams 
families assuredly did much for the Indians of 
this valley and the natives showed their appre- 
ciation in many ways. The propensity of the 
red men for fire-water, and their begging often 
became very obnoxious to the early settlers, 
and is to this day the cardinal sin of the Indians 
of this State. 

But to the settlers there were many offsets 
for these failings. Tailors and dressmakers 
were scarce in the settlements and the pioneers 
soon became accustomed to wearing moccasins 
and other wearing apparel made by the skillful 
hands of the Indian women. The larder of the 
pale faces was never empty, if there was any 
game for the red men to shoot. The Indians 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



83 



enjoyed the many novelties introduced by tlie 
settlers, and often stood for hours watching 
some old pioneer run a spinning- wheel, a black- 
smith at the forge, a cobbler mending shoes, or 
a farmer in his field. 

The Indian was full of curiosity, but ap- 
parently without any desire to imitate these 
arts of peace. The warrior could be amused 
l)y these novel industries, but to him they were 
at their best but arts to be practiced by women 
and slaves. The race of hunters and rovers 
could not adapt themselves to the life of a 
farmer or a mechanic. They did not have the 
power to adapt themselves to new and novel 
conditions, and to assimilate in a single genera- 
tion the cardinal principles of another and a 
finer civilization, which faculty has made tiie 
Japanese people the marvel of the world in the 
opening years of this 20th century. For ages 
these aborigines had found in the chase at once 
their recreation and their livelihood. Could 
the Christians really expect this strange race 
to fall at once into their footsteps, and to 
change at their bidding their whole mode of 
life, of thought and action? Yet many of the 
early settlers in Bay County deemed the In- 
dians a slothful, shiftless and almost worthless 
race. And certainly the Indians proved total 
failures here, lx)th as farmers and fishermen. 
The pioneers found out at some cost of time 
and money, that the retl men of the Northwest 
would never be to them what the Ethiopian 
negro has ever been to the South. 

Our liberal but sometimes too philan- 
thropic government has tried for years to give 
to the young braves a first-class education. 
Many Indian youths from the bands of this 
vicinity have attended school at the Carlisle 
Indian School. During all the years they spent 
at school they longed for the freedom and 
care-free life of their primitive shacks on the 
Kawkawlin and elsewhere, and in many cases 



the young warriors had hardly graduated from 
these seats of learning, before they drifted back 
into the shiftless moods of their ancestors. 
Cases are not rare, where these Indian students 
turned their learning into evil channels. Not 
many moons ago a graduate from one of the 
Indian schools in this part of the State was 
found guilty of forger3\ He found that an 
easy way to get ready cash. lie had been 
taught the art of writing, but no pedagogue 
could instill into the red man the habits of in- 
dustry and thrift common to the white race. 

When one compares the red men of to-day 
with the aborigines as the pioneers of this 
county found them, we cannot fail to notice 
a slow but steady improvement along these 
lines. The Indian women especially have de- 
veloped habits of thrift and industry that 
promise better things for the remnant of the 
race in the years to come. Comparatively few, 
however, have yet proven themselves equal to 
the task of getting something better than a 
scanty living from the acres they cultivate or 
the occupation they follow. Hereabouts they 
have been most successful in catching the finny 
tribes of the bay, probably because this liusiness 
is more sportsmanlike after the manner of their 
forefathers. But the copper-colored citizen of 
to-day is not much different from the primitive 
Indian of the pioneer days. No race exhibits 
a greater antithesis of character than the na- 
tive warrior of America. The pioneers found 
him daring, ruthless, self-denying and self- 
devoted in war, generous, hospitable, honest, 
revengeful, superstitious, commonly chaste, 
and slothful in times of peace. Since he was 
more numerous in the valley than the early 
settlers, he filled a large place in their every- 
day life and furnished all that is romantic and 
picturesque in the recital of their pioneer ex- 
periences. 

The early settlers in this valley came mostly 



84 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



from Xew York and the New England States, 
and were, therefore, famihar with the habits 
and tile failings of their red neighbors. Their 
main characteristics were hospitality and genu- 
ine friendship. If one had a barrel of flour, it 
was divided with the others, share and share 
alike. No one was allowed to want for what 
another had. The food of the pioneers, like 
their clothing, was plain and substantial. Cheap, 
coarse cloth, often home-spun, or the hide and 
fur product of the Indians, furnished the wear- 
ing apparel of the pioneers, made to order by 
the thrifty and industrious housewives or their 
equally helpful daughters. Fine dresses of silk 
for the women were as rare an extravagance 
as broadcloth for the men. Fit or style was 
secondary to wearing Cjualities. 

Since most of our pioneers came from the 
birthplace of the "town-meeting." they took 
from the first an active interest in the wise and 
honest government of their adopted State. 
Being prudent, intelligent and public-spirited, 
they were good and safe citizens. 

They were not lacking in a healthy sense 
of humor. The region was \^■ild and drearv 
enough to discourage the most sanguine, but 
the early settlers were not afflicted with melan- 
choly. They were too busy and too vigorous 
to ever allow their life in the solitude to become 
monotonous or dreary. The records of those 
early days recite many laughable incidents 
among the pioneers, who were at all times 
anxious to have posterity understand that per- 
petrating practical jokes was one of the leading 
industries in the colony. Harry Campbell and 
Jule Hart divided the honors as the most popu- 
lar jesters of the community, and few are the 
reminiscences of a humorous vein recited by the 
old pioneers that do not include these twain. 

Harry Campbell was the faithful chorister of 
the first church meeting house in the settlement. 
One of his idioms consisted in starting the con- 



gregation off with one of the popular airs of the 
day, instead of the announced hymn, keeping 
a sober face meanwhile, until the leader would 
remind him, that he had evidently turned to 
the wrong number. Soljer as the deacon him- 
self, Campbell would turn calmly to the hymn 
desired, only to repeat the mistake at the first 
opportunity. 

George Lord (the future mayor of Bay 
City) and Jule Hart had fisheries on the bay 
shore, and shared for years the "fisherman's 
luck" which is to this day a proverbial and 
changeful ciuantity on stream and bay. One 
day Hart told Lord that his foreman Joe re- 
ported that the fish were running "like blazes," 
and he wanted extra men to pack and dress the 
h>h. Lord hunted up all the idle men he could 
find along the ri\"er, and was just starting for 
the bay, when Hart came running up to an- 
nounce that he had just heard from Joe again, 
and that tlie fish had stopped running. Lord 
saw he had been sold, and like an Indian bided 
his time for re\'enge. Some weeks after Jule 
Hart was enjoying a game of penny-ante in 
the saloon in the basement of the W'olverton 
Flouse, which was the fashionable club room 
of those days. Lord saw his chance. An In- 
dian had just entered with three mnskrat skins. 
"Ugh!" said Lo. "Jule Hart, y(.ni buy um 
skins?" "Yes, give you ten cents for them. 
Here is your money, throw them in that cor- 
ner!" The Indian did as he was told and de- 
parted, while Hart hardly looked up from the 
game. Lord hooked the skins out of the win- 
dow, had a Frenchman stretch them on shin- 
gles, and sell them to Hart, who willingly paid 
for them. It looked like easy money, bu)-ing 
skins while the game went on. Meanwhile 
Lord and a confederate, who also had "one 
coming" for Hart, hustled around to get more 
"skinners" for Hart, and every little while 
those skins would be hooked out of the win- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



85 



dow, and brought back in all manner of dis- 
guises. When the game came to an end, Hart 
rose from the table, remarking that he had lost 
at the game, but he had been buying a thunder- 
ing lot of skins just the same. Imagine his sur- 
prise when he found but three skins in that 
corner. Just then Lord appeared at the win- 
dow. "Say, Jule, it has been just as good a 
day for skins, as that day last fall was for fish !" 
Lord was made disbursing officer by the little 
settlement for the proceeds of the three muskrat 
skins, which were appropriated for the general 
good, in the manner connnon in those days. 

At another time Hart noticed a well-dressed 
stranger about town, and soon was busy telling 
of the wonders of the valley and the hospitality 
of its settlers. A herd of ponies was grazing 
along the river bank, and Hart assured the 
stranger that anybody could have one of the 
ponies who could catch one. The stranger soon 
found several boys to help him catch a steed, 
and the fun was uproarious until the Indians 
owning the herd arrived. The stranger escaped 
with his scalp. 

In the early pioneer days, hotels were few 
and far between, and tra\-elers camped out 
wherever a roof could be found for shelter. 
A lawyer in Lapeer had a barn which was often 
used by travelers without so much as asking 
for the privilege. One day a new arrival drove 
his cow into the barn, put some hay in the loft 
and made himself at home. The lawyer soon 
after left for Bay City, so he told Rev. Mr. 
Smith, the Congregational minister of the lit- 
tle flock at Lapeer, that he had a good milch 
cow at his barn which he did not want to take 
with him, but that the cow had a peculiar habit 
of giving down no milk, unless she was milked 
before 5 A. M. The preacher allowed he was 
an early riser, and he was soon enjoying a 
bountiful supply of milk. One fine morning he 
was shocked by hearing a vulgar voice calling 



him thief, robber and similar pet names. "I've 
caught you at last, you hypocritical, thieving 
parson, preaching honesty to the people, and 
robbing your neighbors of their milk. Til break 
your head !" When the irate farmer got out 
of breath, the parson managed to say, that it 
was his cow, that the lawyer had given the 
animal to him, with the hay in the loft, the 
night before he left. Explanations and a good 
laugh followed the exposure of the lawyer's 
plot. 

This lawyer had a penchant for donating 
other people's property to the churches and 
preachers of Bay City as well. He had a pile 
of hardwood in a field then outside of the city, 
but now one of the fine residence sections of 
Greater Bay City. A well-to-do farmer had a 
large pile of wood in an adjoining field. WHien 
a church deacon asked for a little help, the law- 
yer in a burst of generosity told the deacon that 
if he would haul it all off both fields at once, 
he might have it all. Needless to say that wood 
was promptly hauled to the minister's yard. 
After much excited inquiry, the farmer learned 
how his wood had been donated to the church., 
and it was surely burned beyond recall. 

At another time he was asked to contribute 
something towards the erection of a new 
church in the settlement. The lawyer knew of 
a pile of lumber some Eastern parties had piled 
up on the river bank, and this lumber he 
l)romptly donated to the cause, insisting only 
that it be secured right away. By the time the 
owners came to look for it, the lumber had been 
both dedicated and appropriated, and the law- 
yer was lauded throughout the city as a big 
philanthropist. 

When Allje Lull came to Portsmouth, he 
was told that the loons caught in the river were 
a delicacy fit for an ejiicure. Before long he 
caught a loon, and invited his neighbor in to 
share the delicacy. This neighljor was too busy 



86 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



to participate, but the new arrival had tlie loon 
put on to boil at lo A. ]\I. At 12 Mrs. Lull 
reported that the loon was nowhere near ten- 
der, so they kept a roaring fire going, but by 
3 P. M. the loon was still like adamant. ' The 
Lulls had all the persistence of the genuine pio- 
neer, so that loon was kept boiling well into the 
next day, by Avhich time the entire settlement 
began to take an interest in the Lull's culinary 
department, and eventually it dawned on the 
Lulls that they had tried to do the impossible, 
when they started to cook a loon. 

Among the old settlers Squaconning Creek 
was pronounced "Squire Conning." Harry 
Campbell met a wandering dentist at Saginaw 
and induced him to row 18 miles to Ports- 
mouth, to look after the mouth of "Squire Con- 
ning." At Portsmouth he was told that he had 
passed the "Squire's" mouth some miles up the 
river, whereupon the settlement enjoyed a good 
laugh. Incidentally the dentist found some 
work in his line down here, so he did not regret 
looking for the "Squire." 

One of the early settlers to select the mound 
for his cabin was a rollicking Scotchman, 
named Thomas Stevenson. His one failing 
was the genuine Scotch "hot stuff," which he 
usually bought by the barrel. One of these 
barrels was delivered to Jule Hart, who kept 
it in his warehouse for his friends, old Tom 
himself getting a drink of it occasionally and 
cussing it furiously, as "poor Indian whiskey." 
Finally he wrote to Detroit asking about his 
barrel. They promptly replied that they had 
Jule Hart's receipt for it. Then Stevenson 
stormed down to Hart's warehouse, where a 
council of war had been held meanwhile and 
Tom's barrel filled with river water and care- 
fully hid away. Stevenson found his barrel, 
cussed Jule for not finding it sooner, and over- 
looking it so long, and after some trouble and 
expense got it into the basement of his cabin. 



Then he invited all the boys to come and have a 
drink of the "real stuff." After this character- 
istic introduction, the river water failed to 
tickle the palate of his hardy neighbors, and 
when the truth dawned on Tom Stevenson, it 
was time for Jule Hart to get busy at his fish- 
eries on the bay shore, with a scout out to warn 
liim if danger approached in the person of an 
extra-dry Scotchman. And it required a full 
barrel of the best "extra dry" before Tom 
would again allow the pipe of peace to circulate 
in the settlement. 

Many good bear stories were told by the 
old settlers around their camp-fires, but none 
was repeated with more zest than Harry Camp- 
Ijcll's. Probate Judge Sydney S. Campbell had 
Harry to dinner one day, and while Harry was 
toasting himself in front of the fireplace, the 
Judge came rushing into the house, shouting 
"bear" at the top of his voice. Bear were a 
common sight in the wilderness, and guns were 
equally common, so it was only the work of a 
minute before Harry was "hot footing ii" 
through the clearing of stumps to the woods, 
which then began where Washington avenue's 
fine business blocks now stand. Scouting cau- 
tiously into the thick underbrush toward a 
big black object, Llarry concluded that it must 
l)e a tame bear, for it showed no inclination 
either to fight or to run away. On closer inspec- 
tion he found it was only a large, coal-black 
hog, and the laugh that followed the discovery 
might have been heard at Wenona, across the 
river, were the wind favoralile. On the way 
back, Harry placed a six-inch charge into the 
old gun and bided his time. Presently Harry 
wandered down to the river and soon came 
hurrying back with the information, that a 
thundering large flock of ducks had just settled 
in the river near the fishing dock where Fifth 
avenue now reaches the river. Judge Camp- 
bell's sportsman's blood was up in an instant, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



87 



and the rest of the company followed as a mat- 
ter of course. The Judge hurried to his fa\-or- 
ite log, from which lie never failed to bag his 
game, aimed carefully and "blazed away." The 
spectators were never quite certain which end 
of that gun was most fatal. It knocked the 
venerable Judge flat on his back, some dis- 
tance east of the log, too sore for utterance, 
while the ducks were mowed down as by a 
cyclone. \\'hen the Judge came to, he won- 
dered what had got into that infernal old gun. 
But Harry quickly set him right, by suggesting 
that prol)ably he had been shooting ducks with 
a bear charge. All present saw the point, and 
are said to have joined themselves into a relief 
committee, vying with each other in relieving 
the sufferer by copius applications of whiskey 
internally and externally, with a little faith 
cure thrown in, by occasionally taking a little 
themselves to relieve the mental anguish of the 
duck hunter. 

One of the earliest arrivals at Portsmouth 
was a retired merchant from New York State, 
who sought rest and solitude, and a chance to 
gratify his main passion, which was hunting 
and which was generally gratified. Yet his 
pleasures were not unmixed with alloy. He 
stammered a little, and when Judge Biniey 
said to him one day : "This is a great place for 
change and rest," he replied promptly: 
"Tli-th-this is a magn-ni-ni-nif-ficent place 
f-f-f-for b-b-b-both. The I-I-In-d-d-dians 
g-g-get your ch-ch-cii-change, and the tavern 
kee-kee-keepers g-g-get th-th-the rest." Of 
the same jovial soul was it written, that an 
anxious friend down East heard he had \xen 
killed by the Indians. A letter inquiring if 
this sad news were true came directly into the 
hunter's hands. He set the fears of his friends 
at rest by writing curtly: "Reports of my 
death are greatly exaggerated!" 

Judge Miller was always positive that the 



pioneers of this valley were an obliging lot. 
He u.sed to quote this note which he received 
from a worthy German settler while he was 
teaching school in the South End : "Mr. 
Teecher : Pleas excuse Fritz for staying home. 
He had der meesels to oblige his vader, Louis 
Muller." A more vigorous epistle came from 
a robust Irishman : "Just you knock hell out 
of Mike when he gives you any lip and oblige, 
Tom." 

The settlers seemetl to agree with Oliver 
Herford, who wrote : 

Some take their gold in minted mold. 

And some in harps hereafter, 
But give me mine in tresses fine 

And keep the change in laughter. 

Some of the irrepressible wags of that set- 
tlement were wont to tell this story of Ephraim 
S. Williams. During the Mexican War there 
was a camp meeting near Mosby's clearing on 
the river. The roving missionary asked Brother 
Williams to pray for the success of the Ameri- 
can arms, which he did. In the course of his 
petition he said : "And, O Lord, do help the 
American arms, and do not forget the legs also. 
Take the arms, if you must, but spare the legs, 
spare the legs!" 

One day while James Eraser and Medor 
Trombley were riding across the prairie to 
Ouanicassee, they passed a little log cabin in 
the swampy wilderness. Mr. Eraser remarked 
that he pitied the poor man who lived here. 
This riled the occupant of the shack, who 
shouted through the open door : "Gints. I want 
yer to know I'm not as poor as you think. I 
don't own this 'ere place." 

The greatest activity prevailed in the \alley 
during the mosquito season. Some of the pio- 
neers' mosquito legends would discount the best 
fish story ever told. Baking day was the mos- 
quitoes' delight and the housewives' torment. 



88 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



They organized a modern plan of campaign 
against tlie "animals," which was rigidly car- 
ried out, in more senses than one. After 
"shooing" out the kitchen and securely fast- 
ening the doors and windows, for fear the 
winged monsters would carry off the "dough," 
of which none of the pioneers had an over-sup- 
ply, the brave women would begin the real ex- 
ercises of the day by placing some maple sugar 
on the stove. The sugar smudge would often 
drive out the housewife, but it is nowhere al- 
legetl that these organized defensive measures 
ever seriously interfered with the business of 
the mosquitoes. But they had all the elements 
of a formidable demonstration, as the soldiers 
among the pioneers were wont to put it, and 
were comforting to reflect upon in after years. 
Alas, the mosquito does not recall altogether 
pleasant memories. They, at least, were no 
joke, if they were "suckers!" 

Unwillingly, I own, and what is worse, 
Full angrily men barken to thy plaint ; 

Thou gettest many a brush and many a curse. 
For saying thou art gaunt and starved and faint. 

Even the old beggar, while he asks for food, 
Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could ! 

— irilliain Culh-n Bryant. 

But we must turn from this page of mirth, 
and look again upon the more serious side of 
pioneer life in this settlement. Yet a good 
joke was the music and the spice of life for 
these pathfinders. Isolated in a wilderness they 
formed a world by themselves. And to this 
day they will tell you, that while the privileges 
and the diversions have multiplied with the 
years, yet their real enjoyment, the hearty ring- 
ing laugh and the rugged jest, ha\e been lost 
in the whirlpool of modern business activities, 
and the rush of a multitude of strangers from 
strange lands. 

But we have anticipated our narrative! The 



recital of pioneer life has carried us beyond the 
years when William R. McCormick found but 
two log cabins along the entire river from the 
Carrollton sand-bar to the bay. Let us retrace 
our steps, and follow the development of our 
settlement as we g'lean it from the meagre rec- 
ords at hand. 

In 1834, John B. Trudell built a log cabin 
near the McCormick mound, where he lived 
for 16 years with his wife, a daughter of Be- 
noit Trombley ; and Ben Cushway built his log 
cabin and blacksmith shop near the west ap- 
proach of the Lafayette avenue bridge of later 
days. Leon Trombley (father of Mrs. P. J. 
Perrott and Louis Leon Trombley), who was 
an Indian trader and farmer, about this time 
declined to trade his horse for a whole section 
of land that to-day is in the very heart of Bay 
City. In later years he used to say, that he 
little thought then that this swamp, with its 
prairie grass high enough to hide a man, and 
with impenetrable woods, where the wolves 
howled continuously, would within 30 years 
become a thriving and attractive city. He 
kept his horse. But there were other Trom- 
bleys who had more faith in the future of this 
little-known valley. In 1835 we find Medor 
and Joseph Trombley building the first substan- 
tial frame house, with a warehouse in connec- 
tion for storing the goods they exchanged for 
the Indians' furs and venison. 

The persistent booming Michigan's interior 
had received from Governor Cass, and later 
from Governor Stevens T. Mason, showing 
that Michigan was not a hopeless swamp and a 
barren wilderness, together with easier trans- 
portation facilities, made Michigan the El 
Dorado of the West in 1835. The craze for 
land speculation was at its height in 1836 and 
1837. The few traders and hunters in the 
Saginaw Valley during those years had nothing 
to do but show the ciiuntry to these speculators. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



89 



They received liberal pay in bank-notes, which 
being largely "wild-cat" were as worthless and 
elusive as this terror of the backwoods itself. 
Among the tirst to recognize the advantages 
of this valley were Governor ^lason and the 
late Judge Albert Miller. 

James Eraser, born in Inverness, Scotland, 
February 5, 1803, the son of a soldier who liad 
lost a leg in 1796, in the wars with the French, 
was another pillar among the elite who created 
a city and county out of this wilderness. Hav- 
ing accumulated a few thousand dollars Ijy 
thrift and industry, he immigrated to the Uni- 
ted States in 1829, coming straight to Michi- 
gan. He lost nearly all his money in a disas- 
trous attempt at Imilding a sawmill near Ro- 
chester. Oakland County. With less than $100 
he started a small grocery in Detroit. and started 
life anew. In 1832 he married Elizabeth 
Busby, a brave young woman of more than 
ordinary personal charms, whose parents had 
only the year previous emigrated from Eng- 
land. In 1833 he determined to settle on some 
land he had located on the Tittabawassee. From 
Flint the family entered the wilderness on the 
Indian trail, Mrs. Eraser and infant riding on 
an ingenious ox-sled he had built, while he and 
her parents rode on horseback. After getting 
his family settled in the solitude, he returned 
to Detroit to bring up some cattle for his ranch. 
Between Mint and Saginaw they became stam- 
peded, and while chasing them he hung his coat 
with all the cash he had in the world, over 
$500, on a tree near the trail ! and never after 
found it. Long years afterward, when he had 
amassed a fortune, he used to say, that this was 
the greatest loss of his whole life. He cleared 
a nice farm, and planted a flourishing orchard, 
for years the pride of that neighborhood. But 
farm life was too tame for this man on horse- 
back. He spent most of his time in the saddle, 
looking up lands, and in 1S36 moved his family 



to Saginaw, in order that they might lie nearer 
his favorite haunts, the shores of Saginaw bay 
and river. 

That same year Albert Miller bought land 
along the Saginaw River, in what is now Bay 
County, and proceeded to lay out the town of 
Portsmouth. At the same time, Mr. Fraser 
planned the purchase of the Riley Indian Re- 
serve, given to that family of half-breeds by 
the government for bringing about the favor- 
able treaty of 1819 with the Indians. 

In September, 1836, this reserve was 
bought by the Saginaw Bay Company, which 
Mr. Fraser had organized, for the sum of 
$30,000, an enormous price in those days. The 
stockholders included some of Michigan's most 
prominent citizens : Governor Stevens Thomp- 
son Mason, the first executive of our State, 
whose remains lie buried in New York. — they 
are now to be brought back to Detroit, to be 
buried on the site of the first Capitol of Michi- 
gan, Griswold Park, through the consent of 
his sister. Miss Elizabeth Mason, now of Wash- 
ington, D. C, secured on the day following 
President Roosevelt's inauguration, — Ivlarch 5, 
1905 : also Henry R. Schoolcraft (Indian com- 
missioner). Frederick H. Stevens, John Hul- 
bert, Andrew T. McReynolds, Horace Hallock, 
Electus Backus, Henry K. Sanger, Phineas 
Davis and James Fraser. The articles of 
association were executed February 9, 1837, 
and a deed in trust, naming Frederick H. Ste- 
vens and Electus Backus as trustees, was exe- 
cuted February 11, 1837. The company at 
once caused 240 acres to be surveyed and plat- 
ted for a town, and named it "Lower Saginaw." 

The boundaries of this embryo city were 
the present Woodside avenue, the river, a line 
400 feet south of and parallel with loth street, 
and a line 100 feet east of and parallel with 
Van Buren street. The energy and enterprise 
shown in making the purchase was continued 



90 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



in laying out the future city. A clock and ware- 
house were built, and a large hotel was framed 
and lumber provided for its completion. A 
building was also erected to contain the "wild- 
cat" bank. The plans of the company were 
onlv just maturing, when the panic and finan- 
cial crash brought the work to a standstill, and 
the stockholders of the Saginaw Bay Company 
to the verge of bankruptcy. James Fraser alone 
was able to tide over the storm. 

In 1838 business in the valley was at a 
standstill, and the land-lookers vanished. The 
Saginaw County Bank, projected for Lower 
Saginaw, and the Commercial Bank of Ports- 
mouth had bills engraved for circulation, but 
aside from those stolen while in transit from 
the engravers in New York, none was ever put 
into circulation. On March i, 1838, Sydney 
S. Campbell and family arrived to take charge 
of the hotel, and with their advent begins the 
real history of Bay City proper. 

In 1837, John Farmer resurveyed and re- 
platted the town of Portsmouth for the Ports- 
mouth Company, headed also by Governor S. 
T. Mason, and including Henry Howard, State 
Treasurer; Reusing Pritchet, Secretary of 
State; John Norton, cashier of the ^Michigan 
State Bank; John ;M. Berrien, of the United 
States Army, and Albert Miller, judge of the 
Probate Court of Saginaw County. That also 
was before the great financial crash came, and 
things for a season looked bright indeed for 
this valley. Judge Miller, B. K. Hall, Thomas 
Rogers and Barney Cromwell erected the first 
sawmill here in 1837. The first postoffice was 
established the same year at Portsmouth, with 
Judge ililler as postmaster, and Thomas Rog- 
ers as mail carrier, bringing mail once each 
week from Saginaw. Three or four letters 
each way. and a few weekly papers coming 
down, was the extent of the mail business for 
several years to come. Dr. J. T. Miller located 



at Portsmouth about this time, — the first physi- 
cian to begin practice here. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Rogers, wife of Thomas 
Rogers, was the daughter of Dr. Wilcox, of 
Watertown, New York. She was an earnest 
student of medicine, putting up the prescrip- 
tions for her father, and when but 18 years old 
was often consulted by her father on difficult 
cases. In 1828 she married Thomas Rogers, 
coming with him to this county in 1837. For 
years she was the ministering angel of the 
early pioneers. Through storm and night she 
would hasten to the bedside of the sick and the 
dying, sometimes on horseback, more often on 
foot, through the woods, swamps and prairie, 
wherever the call of duty might be. For 15 
years she was present at every birth in the set- 
tlement. During the epidemic of cholera she 
was the constant attendant of the sick and the 
dying, day and night. She would take no 
money and had no price. Some of the daily 
necessities of life sent to her home would be 
accepted, but nothing more. After 1850 many 
practicing physicians came to the valley, yet 
many of the old settlers would call }klrs. Dr. 
Rogers, as they fondly called her. William R. 
]\IcCormick was taken with the cholera, and 
ever after credited Mrs. Rogers with saving 
his life. The Rogers family occupied a little 
block-house on the banks of the river in Ports- 
mouth, and the venerable old lady never 
wearied in after years of telling her many har- 
rowing experiences in those dismal years. The 
wolves howled so at night that the newcomers 
could not sleep. In time they became so accus- 
tomed to these nightly wolf concerts that they 
did not mind them any more, and often in after 
years she would start out to see a sick person 
with the howling of the wolves as accompani- 
ment all the way. Often in the daytime she 
could see packs of wolves romping on the oppo- 
site river bank, where Salzburg is now located. 



AND REPRESENTATR'E CITIZENS. 



93 



One clay two drunken Indians came lo licr door 
wliile her husband was away. Slie refused 
them achnittance, when they secured an axe 
and proceeded to break down the door. She 
seized an iron rake, flung open the door and 
knocked the nearest redskin senseless with one 
blow, and the other was glad to make off. Then 
she nursed the wounded Indian back to con- 
sciousness and bade him begone. She was at 
once brave and tenderhearted, and gave the 
pioneers credit for all the noble characteristics 
she herself possessed. When the tide of com- 
mercialism swept over the valley, she fre- 
quently remarked the change. Our settlement 
has grown from three families to more than 
20,000 inhabitants, she would say, but the 
greatest change is in the people themselves. 
They do not seem to be as hospitable, noble- 
hearted and generous, as they used to be. And 
the surviving pioneers readily agreed with her. 
She died July 16. 1881, in the community for 
which she had done so much during the trying 
days of the early settlement. 

Cromwell Barney brought his family to this 
place in 1838 from Rhode Island and on May 
22. 1838, there was born in the little block- 
house on the river bank, now Fourth avenue 
and Water street, Mary E. Barney, the first 
female white chikl Ixirn in Bay County, later 
Mrs. Alfred G. Sinclair, a well-known resident 
of Bay City. Barney was the messenger of the 
little settlement in those years, and frequently 
made the trip to Detroit in winter for supplies, 
which he would bring back pn a little sled, re- 
quiring nine days for the round trip! The 
Barney farm, located within the boundaries of 
the First Ward of Bay City, was long a land- 
mark in the county, and a street of that ward 
has been named after him. He later went into 
the lumbering business with James Eraser on 
the Kawkawlin River, where he lived until his 
death, November 30, 1851. He was a con- 



spicuous type of the early pioneer. Upright 
and straightforward in all his dealings with his 
fellow-men, of unbounded energy, to whom 
idleness was a crime, he was one of the ster- 
ling builders of this community. In 1838, 
Cromwell Barney was working on the Globe 
Hotel, which is still standing, though consider- 
ably altered, at the corner of \\'ater street and 
Fifth a\enue. At that time the clearing: alone 
the river front extended only from what is now 
Third street to Center avenue, and east hardly 
as far as Washington - avenue. Four block- 
houses comprised the settlement. 

Mr. Eraser induced Sydney S. Campl^ell 
to open the Globe Hotel, the first hostelry here, 
his friends insisting ever afterward, that Syd's 
love of ease made it easy for him to doze in the 
wilderness. Born at Paris, Oneida County, 
New York, February 29, 1804, Judge Camp- 
bell did not enjoy many birthdays during his 
long and useful life. In March, 1830, he mar- 
ried Catherine J. McCartee, at Schenectady, 
New York, and immediately started life near 
Pontiac, Michigan. They were of that sturdy 
Scotch stock, which did so much to build up 
this valley. Their eldest son, Edward }klc- 
Cartee Campbell, was the first white boy born 
in Lower Saginaw. He built a brick business 
block on Water street, and looked after the 
Globe Hotel continuously for more than 45 
years. The venerable old couple spent the last 
years of their life in the commodious farm 
house at \Wiodside avenue and Johnson street, 
surrounded by a large orchard, which 23 years 
ago yielded many a juicy apple to the humble 
scribe of these chapters, whose good fortune it 
was to Ije a favorite of the pioneers. The jovial 
old settler provided the children of the neigh- 
borhood with their pet rabbits and tame pig- 
eons, and seemed never happier than when a 
group of youngsters would listen to his Indian 
yarns and play with his many pets. 



94 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Sydney S. Campbell was the first supervi- 
sor of Hampton township, elected in 1843, '^"'^ 
was judge of probate of Bay County for 16 
years after its organization. He used to tell 
the writer that it was a common thing for him 
to paddle 16 miles to Saginaw for one pound 
of tea. In 1839 he borrowed the government 
team of oxen and plowed up the site of the 
Folsom & Arnold mill, now the Wylie & Buell 
lumber-yard, and sowed a field of buckwheat, 
which he and his good wife harvested on a sail- 
cloth and stored it away in the loft of Camp- 
bell's hotel. That winter there was a scarcity 
of flour, and pioneers and Indians helped them- 
selves to Mr. Campbell's buckwheat, which 
they ground in a coffee-mill in the "wild-cat" 
bank building, just across the way. Frederick 
Derr, a young mechanic, came here that year, 
and meeting Miss Clark, a young lady teacher 
who had been engaged to teach the young idea 
to sprout, promptly proposed, was accepted, 
and before night the blacksmith of the settle- 
ment, who was also justice of the peace, tied 
the knot in the smithy by simply pronouncing 
them man and wife. This was the first wed- 
ding here. Mrs. Derr lived only a year after 
the marriage, being the second person to be 
buried in the cemetery established by the set- 
tlers where Columbus and Garfield avenues 
now meet. A death in that little backwoods 
settlement cast a gloom over the population, 
which it took months to efface. 

During the winter of 1838-39. General 
Rousseau and his brother. Captain Rousseau, 
with Dr. Rousseau, an uncle, were busy sur- 
veying new townships in this vicinity for the 
government, which had lately acquired a clear 
title to the lands from the Indians. Owing to 
the swampy nature of much of the land, this 
work could best be done when the ice and snow 
made them passable. In 1839, Louis Clawson, 
assisted by some of the well-known trappers 



and traders of the valley, surveyed much of the 
territory along the shore of Lake Huron for 
the government. Tradition and speculation 
on those lands were giving way to scientific 
research and established fact. 

In July, 1839, Captain Stiles with a char- 
tered vessel brought Stephen \\^olverton from 
Detroit to begin the erection of the old light- 
house at the mouth of the river, which is still 
standing, a picturesque landmark of those early 
mariners. It has since been replaced by a larger 
and more modern lighthouse. Capt. Levi John- 
son, of Cleveland, finished the first one in 1841. 

In September, 1839, the early settlers had a 
chance to see one of the large assemblies of In- 
dians, which in years previous had been a com- 
mon occurrence in the valley. Seventeen hun- 
dred Indians camped about the Globe Hotel 
and on the Fitzhugh mound on the West Side 
for two weeks, while John Hulbert, the Indian 
agent, distributed the final payment of $80,000 
for the purchase of their resen'ation, consum- 
mated in 1837. The Indians camped there for 
two weeks, and not one overt act is charged to 
them during their stay. It was an event the 
old settlers long rememliered and often recalled. 
For a time Poor Lo lived high, but he had not 
the faculty of handling money, and fakers of 
all descriptions soon separated him from the 
fruits of his land sale. 

In 1838, Capt. Joseph F. Marsac came 
here as Indian farmer and government agent, 
and he did his best to secure to the red men a 
safe method of keeping their money, and a few 
who followed his advice and invested their 
cash in real estate in this vicinity, reaped the 
harvest a few years later. Captain Marsac was 
one of the most popular pioneers here. Born 
near Detroit about 1790, he commanded a 
company at the battle of the Thames in the 
War of 181 2. The Indians were fighting for 
the English, and when General Proctor wanted 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



95 



messages taken back to Detroit, he selected an 
okl scout, James Groesbeck, and Captain Mar- 
sac for tlie perilous undertaking. They hid 
in the daytime, and traveled at night, until the 
message was safely delivered to the American 
commander at Detroit. In 1816 he visited 
Chicago as interpreter and trader. That future 
metropolis of the West then contained but five 
block-houses. In 181 9, General Cass sent for 
him to assist in passing the treaty of that year 
with the Indians, where Captain Marsac did 
excellent service. He rode on horseback with 
General Cass all over Michigan, as the Gov- 
ernor was determined to see how things actu- 
ally looked in the much-abused interior. Com- 
missioned by Governor Porter to raise a com- 
pany of Indian fighters for the Black Hawk 
War, he got as far as Chicago, when news came 
that Black Hawk had been captured, and Cap- 
tain Marsac's company of border scouts re- 
luctantly returned home. In 1836 and 1837 
he took a prominent part in the final treaties 
for the Indians' lands. He was a close friend 
of 0-ge-ma-ke-ga-to, and did much to win over 
that powerful chieftain. His estimable wife, 
Theresa Rivard, was born at Grosse Pointe, 
Michigan, July 22, 1808, and in 1829 became 
the bride of the famous Indian fighter. They 
had six children: Charles, Octavius, for 12 
years recorder for Bay City and Democratic 
candidate for another term for Greater Bay 
City ; Mrs. Leon Trombley, Mrs. W. H. South- 
worth. Mrs. T. J. McClennan, and Mrs. George 
Robinson, ^dl residents of the city their father 
helped to build. Captain Marsac died in the 
old homestead in this city, June 18,1880. 

On November 16, i840,Capt. John S. Will- 
son sailed into the river with his family, just 
ahead of a cold wa^e which froze up the river 
the next night, which remained closed until 
late the following .April. He took his family 



to the little block-house on Albert Miller's prop- 
erty in Portsmouth., where he lived until the 
McCormicks bought the homestead in 1842. 
Then he bought 27 acres of land on the river 
front, between the present 18th and 21st streets, 
building a cabin and planting an orchard. He 
spent the winters hunting and trapping, with 
good success, and in summer he sailed the 40- 
ton schooner "Mary" along the shore between 
Lower Saginaw and Detroit. In the fall of 
1844 he was caught in a terrible storm off the 
mouth of the river, blown across the lake and 
shipwrecked on the Canadian shore, 80 miles 
above Goderich. He and his crew had to walk 
to that little port with frozen feet and without 
food. They could get no help until they 
reached Detroit, and from there they had to 
walk to their homes in the Saginaw Valley! 
The settlers had long since given boat and crew 
up for lost, and their surprise was unbounded 
when the hardy mariners arrived. Captain 
\Villson's oldest daughter had died during his 
absence, and he gave up sailing for the less 
risky occupation of farming. Little did he 
dream that within 10 years his farm would 
become the site for a mammoth sawmill. The 
sturdy pioneers had 14 children, seven of whom 
survive. Captain Willson died in this city 
August 21, 1879, and his good wife did not 
long survive him. A suitable monument marks 
their last resting place in Pine Ridge Cemetery. 
In 1840, Dr. Daniel Hughes Fitzhugh 
bought considerable land on the west side of 
the river, opposite Portsmouth and Lower Sag- 
inaw. In 1 841 came Bay City's most famous 
citizen, Hon. James G. Birney, in pursuit of 
solitude and rest, which he found. Dr. Fitz- 
hugh, James Eraser and Hon. James G. Birney 
were practically the sole owners of Lower Sag- 
inaw, having bought the rights and properties 
of the defunct Saginaw Bay Coinpany. Theo- 



96 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



dore Walker, of Brooklyn, New York, also 
held some of the scrip for the land, which he 
secured, for an unpaid tailor bill, from one of 
the bankrupt stockholders of the original com- 
pany. Little did he dream that some day this 
discredited bit of paper would bring him wealth 
and a new home. He came here in 1842, and 
for years after was one of the town's most ec- 
centric characters, until death claimed him in 
1870. The lives of these three projectors of 
Bay City, — Fitzhugh, Fraser and Birney, — are 
so closely identified with the growth and de- 
velopment of these cities that their personal 
sketches belong of right to the section of this 
work devoted exclusively to biographies. The 
first six years of their activity in the new settle- 
ment were rather monotonous. 

In 1842, Frederick Backus brought a stock 
of goods and opened the first store in Bay 
County, in the vacant warehouse on the river 
front. 

In 1843, JMichael Dailey, the Indian trader 
and interpreter, opened his trading house at 
the mouth of the Kawkawlin River, and began 
his travels about Northern Michigan, which 
gave him a well-merited repute as a fur hunter 
and pedestrian. Each winter he would take 
his blanket and pack and follow the shore of 
Lake Huron as far north as the Straits of Mac- 
inac and even the shores of Lake Superior. 
On one of these trips he met the two Indians 
whe were handling L'ncle Sam's mail with a 
dog train, at Sault Ste. Marie, bound for Lower 
Saginaw. The Indians were on snow-shoes, 
and calculated to go 50 miles each day. This 
did not discourage Mr. Dailey, who led the 
Indians a merry pace for 150 miles, finally left 
them, and came into this settlement some hours 
ahead of the dog train. In 1857, Mr. Dailey 
married Miss Longtin, daughter of an estima- 
ble pioneer, and having unbounded confidence 



in the future of this settlement invested all his 
earnings in real estate, which eventually be- 
came very valuable. The last years of his life 
were spent in the family homestead on Wash- 
ington avenue and First street, suffering much 
from rheumatism due to exposure and over- 
exertion in his younger days. 

In 1843 the settlement was separated from 
Saginaw township and created into Hampton 
township. In 1844 the first school house was 
built near the north end of Washington ave- 
nue, and Israel Catlin arrived. Hon. James G. 
Birney held religious services in this building, 
with the often dubious assistance of the irre- 
sistible Harry Campbell. In 1845 the late P. 
J. Perrott joined his fortunes with the settle- 
ment. J. B. Hart and B. B. Hart came in 1846. 

In April, 1846, Hon. James Birney, of Con- 
necticut, came to visit his father. His experi- 
ence on this trip is a vivid reminder of the prim- 
itive conditions still existing in the interior of 
Michigan at this time. He journeyed from 
Flint to Saginaw by the stage, a springless 
wagon drawn by two ponies, over a road of 
corduroy and mud, each worse than the other, 
with plenty of trees and roots adding excite- 
ment and jolts to the trip. After waiting two 
days at Saginaw for a boat to bring him down, 
he hired an Indian for 75 cents to paddle him 
down. He surprised his famous father while 
the latter was working in mud and water up 
to his ankles on a line fence where St. Joseph's 
Church is now located, then a long way in the 
wilderness. 

In 1847, James Fraser proceeded to carry 
out his pet scheme of converting these majestic 
pine trees into lumber, and the lumber into the 
circulating medium of the realm, by construct- 
ing the first sawmill in conjunction with Hop- 
kins and Pomeroy. 

In the winter of 1847, H. W. Sage, of New 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



97 



York, who later did so mucli to develop the 
west side of the river, came with Deacon An- 
drews and Jarvis Langdon, of Ehnira, New- 
York, and Joseph L. Shaw, of Ithaca, New 
Y'ork, to negotiate wnth Mr. Birney for some 
of the property in the settlement, whose fame 
was gradually finding its way to the business 
centers of the East. They put up at the Globe 
Hotel, where they found only one little bed 
available for strangers. They cast lots to see 
who would sleep in the bed, and three drew 
lucky numbers, while Deacon Andrews drew 
the floor, but as the latter was old and in poor 
health, I\Ir. Sage took his place on the pine 
knots. After several nights on the floor, Mr. 
Sage concluded he had had enough of rough 
pioneer experience and salt pork thrice daily, 
so on the Sabbath Day he hired a sleigh and, 
despite the Deacon's scruples alwut traveling 
on the Lord's Day, hied himself back to civil- 
ization. 

In 1847, Daniel H. Futzhugh, Jr., built 
what was then considered an extravagant house 
on the corner of Third and Water streets. 

In 1848 the fortunes of the settlement be- 
gan to brighten, and soon a boom was in full 
swing. In 1848 there were added to the popu- 
lation, — Curtis Munger, who opened the sec- 
ond store in the settlement ; and Edward Parke, 
an experienced pioneer. Thomas Carney and 
wife came to look after the boarding house 
being built for the sawmill employees, and J. 
S. Barclay and wife reinforced the Scotch col- 
ony in this outpost of civilization in the north 
woods, as Deacon Andrews described it, after 
regaining his equilibrium and his cottage in 
the East. 

J. L. Hibbard came to clerk in the Munger 
store in 1849, ^^ '^^^'•^ Alexander McKay and 
family and J. W. Putnam, who erected homes 
on the river front in keeping with tlie 



modest pretensions of the settlement. Old 
settlers assure us that life in the colony 
was now picking up. The social forces 
consisted of the Mesdames Barney, Bar- 
clay, Cady, Catlin, Campbell, Hart and 
Rogers, all of whom belonged to tlie "social 
set" and kept perpetual open house, where they 
disseminated the local news with conscientious 
promptness and due diligence. A serpentine 
foot-path winding in and out among the stumps 
on the river bank furnished an ample thorough- 
fare for the equippages of the little settlement. 
But the tall and whispering pines on the Sagi- 
naw had been heard in the business centers of 
the country, and soon there came "the first low 
wa\-es, which soon will be followed by a human 
sea." 

The settlement is growing apace in 1850, 
and space will forbid calling the roll of these 
new arrivals. The little community soon began 
to grow by leaps and bounds. The a.KC of the 
woodsman is heard all along the shores of the 
river, the clearings are increasing in numlier 
and in size, new cabins and cottages, more or 
less pretentious, are springing up under the 
merry music of hammer and saw, new mills 
are furnishing work for new arrivals, new busi- 
ness places are opened up, the river is alive 
with craft of all descriptions, roads are opened 
to the south and east, fisheries prosper, and 
farms are in bloom, where once the whip-poor- 
will was undisturbed. The settlement is out- 
growing its last suit of homespun, and the 
1x)undaries are being steadily pushed eastward, 
northward and southward, while an equally 
ambitious community beckons to Lower Sagi- 
naw from the village of Wenona across the 
river. The settlers have become villagers and 
citizens. The reminiscences of the pioneers 
must give way to the record of achievements 
in the fields of commerce and industry. The 



98 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



pathfinders have shown the way! The multi- 
tude will soon follow. Ever new slioulders are 
being put to the wheels of progress and devel- 
opment. The long drawn out and hard fought 
battle of the early settlers with dangers, priva- 



tions, toil and hardships is clearly won. The 
"Garden Spot of Michigan," but yesterday a 
howling wilderness, has been revealed even 
under the primitive work of the pioneers. An- 
other new era is dawning in this blessed valley I' 



CHAPTER V. 



ORGANIZATION AND GROWTH OF BAY COUNTY. 

Early Land Transactions and Settlements — Hampton Township Erected — Earlv 
Elections — The Strenuous Fight for Separation from Saginaw- County — Era 
of Prosperity — Early Official Transactions — Arenac County Erected — Cen- 
sus Figures and Some Vital Statistics — Synopsis of Election Returns — Some of 
Those Who Have Served in Official Positions — Roster of County Officials. 

Up to our altars, then, haste we and summon 
Courage and loveliness, manhood and woman ! 
Deep let our pledges be : Freedom for ever ! 
Truce with oppression, never, oh never ! 
By our own birthright-gift, granted of Heaven — 
Freedom for heart and lip. be the pledge given ! 

—IVhittier. 



The Saginaw Bay Company, led by the late 
James Eraser, and organized February 9, 1837, 
named the embryo city they had surveyed and 
platted "Lower Saginaw," which name the set- 
tlement retained for 20 years. Lower Saginaw 
contained 240 acres within the limits now 
bounded, roughly speaking, by Woodside ave- 
nue on the north, Columbus avenue on the 
south and by Grant street, then away out in 
the wilderness, which formed the eastern 
boundary. 

In 1836 the late Judge Albert Miller pur- 
chased a tract of land some three miles from 
the mouth of the river, which lay somewhat 
higher above the river level than the surround- 
ing country, and therefore to his practiced eye 
offered the best opportunities for early settle- 
ment. This tract includes the district now 
lying south of Columbus avenue and west of 



Garfield avenue, the western portion of which 
now constitutes the greater part of the Fifth, 
Sixth and Seventh wards of Bay City. After 
being surveyed and platted, it was named 
Portsmouth. Judge ]\Iiller recognized the im- 
mense value of the vast timber belt then skirt- 
ing the river, and his first enterprise was the 
erection of a sawmill in 1837, the first at this 
end of the river, designed to furnish prospect- 
ive settlers with an easy and cheap means of 
erecting their humble cabins, and al.-^o to sup- 
ply the other sections of Michigan south of the 
Saginaw River, which during those years of 
colonization in the ''Peninsular'' State, were 
rapidly being populated. 

The subsequent panic throughout the coun- 
try, particularly disastrous to the development 
of the interior of our State, crushed for a time 
all the prospects of these two prospective set- 



lOO 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



tlements. In 1838 the affairs of the Saginaw 
Bay Compan)', opened under such auspicious 
and enterprising circumstances, went into 
chancery, and its bright prospects were bhght- 
ed. But the original projectors never lost 
faith in the future of this end of the valley. 

In 1840, Dr. Daniel Hughes Fitzhugh 
took advantage of the recent survey by govern- 
ment officials of the Indian reservation on the 
west shore of the Saginaw River, by purchas- 
ing several of the more desirable parcels of 
land lying directly across the river from Ports- 
mouth. 

It will be noticed that all these early land 
transactions dealt in the few locations directly 
on the river bank, where elevations, natural 
or artificial, removed the danger of the peren- 
nial floods at that time. During the following 
60 years the waters have gradually receded, 
the river banks have been artificially dammed, 
and the river channel deepened at its mouth, 
so that every foot of the rich, low river bot- 
toms has been made available for farms and for 
factory sites. Could the pioneers of 1840 have 
foreseen these favorable changes with the pass- 
ing years, they would undoubtedly have in- 
vested in much more of the valley property, the 
choicest parcels of which then sold for $5 an 
acre, and what is now some of the choicest city 
property was then bought for $3 an acre. But 
even at that price it required some foresight 
and faith in the future of these lowlands, for 
any large purchases. For the settlements at 
the mouth of the Saginaw River were the out- 
post of civilization in the interior of Michigan 
for many years. 

In 1840 there was not a single known white 
settler between here and Alackinaw, and Fort 
Mackinac itself was only a military outpost, 
with a mission for the Indians. On the old 
map owned by Captain Marsac the country 
north of here showed but crude outlines of a 



few of the many large streams that pour their 
waters into Lake Huron. Ouisconsin, as the 
State of Wisconsin appears on that map, was 
scarcely known beyond tlie outskirts of the 
first settlements on its southeastern border. The 
entire country from this valley to ]\Iackinaw 
was included in the township of Saginaw, with 
the exception of a part of Arenac, which was 
attached to Midland for judicial purposes. 

In 1842 the projectors of Bay City made 
an eft'ort to secure a separate township organi- 
zation, and in the winter of 1843 the Saginaw 
County Board of Supervisors erected the town- 
ship of Hampton, which included at the time 
all the territory from the lower end of the Sag- 
inaw River to Mackinaw. This vast territory 
was named Hampton by Hon. James G. Bir- 
ney, in honor of the country seat of his wife 
in New York State, Flampton-on-Hudson. 

The organization of Hampton township 
was completed in March, 1843, ^nd on April 
I, 1843, the settlers held their first election in 
the Globe Hotel. William R. IMcCormick's 
hat was the ballot-box and it was a stand- 
ing joke of the old settlers ever after that he 
wore a hat large enough to hold all the votes 
between here and Mackinaw. The more super- 
stitious of the settlers had cause for reflection 
when it was found that just 13 citizens were 
present and eligible to vote. Hon. James G. 
Birney, who that very year was nominated for 
the second time by the Liberty party for the 
highest office in the gift of our people, the 
presidency of the United States, received six 
votes for supervisor, while the proprietor of 
the settlement's only hostelry received seven 
votes, and thus Sydney S. Campbell was de- 
clared duly elected to attend the board meet- 
ings at Saginaw, and privileged to paddle his 
own canoe for 16 miles each way for glory and 
the prestige of the settlement. 

That first vote has been subject to consid- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



lOI 



era1)le critical analysis. That party spirit ran 
high is evident by the close vote. Just why 
James G. Birney, one of the brightest and most 
advanced citizens of the country, without a 
doubt Bay County's foremost citizen, who 
had done much to bring about the separate or- 
ganization of Hampton township, and who 
was at that \ery time bending every energy 
and dollar he had in the world to the develop- 
ment of this little settlement, should be defeated 
by the jolly tavern-keeper, has been the subject 
for discussion and conjecture. The Democratic 
party was then still in the ascendency in the 
land, and Supervisor Campbell belonged to 
the dominant party. Perchance the party whi]) 
and party loyalty was as efifective in 1843 '^^ '^ 
certainly is in 1905. Or mayhap the refreshing 
influence of the tavern was more persuasive 
in securing votes, than pre-eminent aljility. pul)- 
lic-spiriled effort or the undivided interests of 
the little settlement. Be that as it may. the 
contents of William R. McCormick's hat 
showed tliat a majority of the settlers wanted 
Sydney S. Camjibell on the board, and bis elec- 
tion was duly celebrated far into the night by 
the successful "party," differing from our mod- 
ern-day celebration of election victories only 
in point of numbers. 

Old residents are authority for the deduc- 
tion, that there was more good cheer dispensed 
as a result of that first election on the soil of 
embryo Bay County, per capita of population 
taken into the reckoning, than was dispensed in 
these parts in November, 1904, when the popu- 
larity of President Theodore Roosevelt landed 
him in tiie White House by the largest electoral 
as well as jiopular vote ever given a presidential 
nominee, and incidentally resulted in a land- 
slide for the local Republican ticket in Bay 
County, every candidate on that ticket being 
elected, with hundreds of votes to spare, against 
an unusually strong ticket on the other side. 



Judge Campbell in later years enjoyed 
many jokes about that first election in Hamp- 
ton township, while .some of the best emanated 
beside his own fireside. He served as super- 
visor for a number of years, being succeeded 
by George Lord, who came here from Madison 
County, New York, in the winter of 1854, and 
who built the Keystone mill on the West Side. 
He had hardly settled here before public office 
and honors were showered on him by the little 
community, and during the next 20 years he 
held a number of the highest offices in the gift 
of the people here. He was a robust type of 
the early pioneers, who liked a joke as well as 
his predecessor. Judge Cam])bcll, and both 
were correspondingly popular. He represented 
this community on the board of Saginaw 
County at the time the agitation was on for 
creating a separate county down here, and was 
bitterly opposed by the supervisors of Saginaw 
and Midland townships. When Midland set 
up for itself, he was active in securing the or- 
ganization of another township on the west 
side of the river, and in 1855 the Midland 
board organized the township of \\'illiams, 
comprising townships 14, 15 and 16 north, 
range 3 east, and all of Arenac County. 

How thinly this vast territory was settled 
in those early years, is best shown by the \-ote 
at presidential elections. Michigan being ad- 
initted to Statehood in 1835, the first presiden- 
tial election took place in November, 1836. 
Oddly enough, Saginaw County, which then 
included all the territory from the Flint River 
to Mackinaw, is credited with giving 165 votes 
to Martin Van Buren, Democrat, while not a 
single vote is credited to "Tippecanoe" liar- 
rison, the \\ big candidate. Undoubtcdl}- the 
Democratic politicians of that day and of this 
vast territory knew at that early day how to 
manipulate returns and votes. Four years later, 
in 1840, Van Buren received 100 votes, to Har- 



I02 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



rison's 89. In 1844, President Polk received 
but 104 votes, to 107 for Henry Clay, the \\diig 
candidate. These several elections not only 
show a slow but positive increase in population, 
but they also show much change of sentiment. 

This vote of 1844^ as recorded in the Capi- 
tol at Lansing, would also show that this settle- 
ment of future Bay City did not show due re- 
spect and appreciation for the distinguished 
lawyer and citizen who for the sake of princi- 
ple, in defense of human liberty, equality, and 
the very birthright of the human race, had 
given up his slaves, much of his earthly pos- 
sessions, had forsaken the charming scenes of 
his childhood in "Old Kentucky," and all the 
comforts and luxury of his Southern home, to 
seek exile in Michigan, where freedom was all 
that the word implies, and not merely an idle 
phrase. For nowhere do we find that one 
single vote was cast in this election of 1844 for 
Bay County's most distinguished pioneer, Hon. 
James G. Birney, who in this very election re- 
ceived 62,300 votes for President of the United 
States on the ticket of the Liberty party. While 
thousands of his fellow-citizens in other parts 
of the country were by their votes honoring 
the grand old man and his principles, his neigh- 
bors in the wilderness, for whom he was doing 
so much, do not appear to have voted for him 
at all ! Yet this sterling citizen, defender of 
liberty for all, an earnest preacher in the wil- 
derness, eloquent in his defense of the en- 
slaved black race of the South, who through 
a long life practiced all the Christian virtues, 
this pioneer in our own backwoods settlement, 
received in the very next year (1845) 3-023 
votes for Governor of Michigan on his party 
ticket. The county did better by him in this 
election, giving him 37 votes, but even these 
are paltry returns for all that he daily did for 
these hidebound partisans. 

James G. Birney came upon the political 



arena just 20 years too soon! Had he been 
eligible in i860, the whole trend of our coun- 
try's history might have been changed. But it 
was his duty in life to "blaze" a way for future 
generations. His self-sacrifices and his elo- 
quent championship of the down-trodden 
slaves of the South showed the way for the 
next generation of abolitionists, who completed 
the work he had so well begun. He was a 
leader in that great movement, when leader- 
ship meant social exile and banishment from 
his native hearth. He was one of the prophets 
in the wilderness, who was figuratively cruci- 
fied for the cause he served and that world-wide 
humanity he loved. And he was as eminent 
and successful a pioneer in this valley, as he 
was in that movement to free the slaves of the 
South. 

That his preaching was not utterly lost 
upon his neighbors, is shown by the vote of 
1848, when this vast county gave Gen. Lewis 
Cass, the famous Indian fighter and territorial 
Governor of Michigan, 183 votes on the Demo- 
cratic ticket, while Gen. Zachary Taylor, 
^\'hig. received iiS, and Martin Van Buren, 
Free Soil candidate, recei\-ed 47 votes. Those 
47 votes were cast for the principles James G. 
Birney fought for. The tide had not yet set in, 
that would sweep old prejudices away, but 
the first low waves were rolling, even here. 
In 1852 the vote for President was as follows: 
Franklin Pierce, Democrat, 694; Gen. Win- 
field Scott, Whig, 367 ; John P. Hale, of New 
Hampshire, Free Soil, y^i- The younger gen- 
erations of this settlement were most impressed 
with the spirit of their tutor, and he lived to 
see the work he did in the vineyard of his 
Master bear good fruit in the organization in 
July, 1855, under the oaks at Jackson, of the 
Republican party, embodying all the principles 
for which he fought. 

This little settlement was represented at 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



103 



the birth of the "Grand Old Party" by the late 
Gen. Benjamin F. Partridge, Jutlge Albert 
Miller. John McEwan, and Col. Henry Ray- 
mond. The movement started by Judge Birney 
and his compatriots had now gained full swing, 
and through the entire North there rang the 
songs of Whittier and Longfellow, and the 
eloquence of Daniel Webster and his co-labor- 
ers in the halls of state at Washington, while 
thousands of volumes of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" 
were sold in Michigan. The result of this 
propaganda is evident in the last election held 
jointly by this community as part of Saginaw 
County in 1856. John C. Fremont, Repub- 
lican, received 1.042 votes, to 1,222 for James 
Buchanan, Democrat. It will also be noted 
that the vote of this vast region had almost 
doubled in those short four years. Verily many 
good citizens had entered the wilderness in 
IMichigan's interior since 1850 and a large pro- 
portion settled here. 

In 1850 the work of building up a prosper- 
ous community in these wilds of Lower Sag- 
inaw, begun in earnest in 1842 by Hon. James 
G. Birney, the late James Eraser and Dr. Daniel 
Hughes Fitzhugh, began to show excellent re- 
sults. Capitalists with money to invest, pro- 
fessional men with energy and ability, brainy 
mechanics and enterprising merchants, came 
to swell the population, undaunted by the 
primitive means we then had of communicat- 
ing with the outside world, or the still more 
primitive environs of the settlement itself. The 
acute business men of that army of hardy ])io- 
neers and home-builders recognized in this lo- 
cation with its wealth of pine and other tim- 
ber, and its many probable though undiscov- 
ered and undeveloped natural resources, a busi- 
ness diamond cut in the rough, and their judg- 
ment has been verified by subsequent events. 

By 1856 this settlement became ambitious, 



and the pioneers were no longer satisfied to be 
a mere tail to the Saginaw kite, and around 
their firesides and in public meeting places they 
demanded a title more distinctive for their 
rising community. Tn that year Hon. James 
Birney came here to carry on the business en- 
terprises of his worthy father, and one of his 
first public acts was the introduction of a bill 
in the Legislature in January, 1857, providing 
"That the name of the village of Lower Sag- 
inaw, in the Township of Hampton, State of 
Michigan, be, and the same is, hereby changed 
to Bay City." The bill was passed and ap- 
proved February 10. 1857, Governor Bingham 
willingly signing the bill, for Saginaw had 
given him an adverse vote, while the little set- 
tlement, which was not yet incorporated as a 
village, had shown some of the spirit of the 
leading pathfinder of the community in regis- 
tering its sovereign will. This success spurred 
the ambitious settlers on to new efforts for a 
separate county organization. 

In November, 1854, Jonathan Smith Bar- 
clay, one of our county's pioneer business men, 
builder and owner of the famous old \\V)lver- 
ton House, managed to secure the nomination 
and election to the Legislature from Saginaw 
County. In 1855, aided by Judge Albert Mil- 
ler and Daniel Burns — another of the galaxy 
of irrepressible sons of Scotland among our 
pioneers — a bill to create Bay County was in- 
troduced and later defeated by only a narrow 
margin, despite the bitter antagonism of both 
Saginaw and Midland, both of whom coveted 
this rich belt on the shores of Saginaw Bay. 
Gen. Benjamin F. Partridge is the historian 
of this memorable contest for recognition by 
his fellow-citizens of embryo Bay County, his 
sketch being published in pamphlet form by the 
Board of Supervisors in 1876. It now occupies 
a conspicuous place in the State Pioneer So- 



I04 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



ciety's "History of Michigan." The opposi- 
tion in the "Third House" was pronounced 
strong, numerous and influential. 

Tlie determination of the now thoroughly 
aroused settlement was equal to the emergency, 
however, and, having a good and just cause, 
won out over seemingly insurmountable ob- 
stacles, just as, 48 years later, equally public- 
spirited citizens won out over a similarly ob- 
durate Legislature, in the endeavor to unite 
the sister cities. Then as now there were luke- 
warm citizens, conservative men who thought 
tliat possibly the matter was a little premature, 
who wanted to wait and see, who wanted to 
leave well enough alone, who were afraid we 
were not yet old or rich enough to 
stand alone, just as 48 years after equally 
conscientious and good citizens thought 
and argued, tliat we were not yet old enough 
or well enough balanced to "stand together." 
It is interesting to note that the progress of 
events for separation from Saginaw in 1857 
were very similar to the course of events that 
UNITED the two Bay Cities in 1905. With a 
divided House behind them, and with seem- 
ingly insurmountable obstacles before them, 
there were able and willing spirits in the com- 
munity who dared to do the impossible. They 
insisted that the separate organization of Bay 
County, as they had determined to name the 
new constituency, was proper and right, and 
being right was not something to be allowed 
by an unwilling Legislature, but something 
that should be at once conceded. 

In 1856 Hon. T. Jerome, of Saginaw, was 
elected to the Legislature from that county, and 
Henry Ashman, from Midland County, with 
the express understanding that they were to 
frustrate all efforts for the creation of Bay 
County, and both stood resolutely by their 
gims. Their opposition was at all times hon- 
orable and above board, but none the less 



strenuous. The Legislature being almost unani- 
mously Republican, the settlers here wisely de- 
cided to send, as their missionaries, the leading 
residents of that political faith. There jour- 
neyed to Lansing, in behalf of a separate and 
distinct county organization, a large commit- 
tee headed by Hon. James Birney, Gen. B. F. 
Partridge, Col. Henry Raymond, William Mc- 
Ewan, John McEwan, Judge Albert Miller, 
and as many other settlers as could spare the 
time from their urgent daily duties of life. 

The act creating Bay County was drawn 
by Chester H. Freeman, one of the first lawyers 
to come to this wilderness, and the description 
of territory was drawn by Gen. B. F. Partridge, 
himself an able surveyor and civil engineer. 
But the representatives of Saginaw and -Mid- 
land counties did not want the bill to pass in 
that form, hence they added Section 2. which 
after a prolonged struggle before the Legisla- 
ture was finally accepted by all parties 
as a compromise. The act creating Bay 
County was as follows : "Section i : That 
the following territory (then followed the 
description) shall be organized into a county, 
which shall be known and called Bay County, 
and the inhabitants thereof shall be entitled 
to all the rights and privileges to which by law 
the inhabitants of the other organized coun- 
ties of this State are entitled. Section 2 : This 
act shall be submitted to a vote of the electors 
of Bay, Saginaw, Midland, and Arenac Coun- 
ties, at the township meetings to be holden in 
said county ( here followed provisions how the 
vote should be taken), and in case a majority of 
the said votes upon the approval of this act 
shall be in favor of such approval, then this 
act shall take effect upon the 20th day of April, 
1857; but if a majority of said votes shall be 
against such approval, then this act shall not 
take effect, but shall be void." 

The anomaly of the wording was caused by 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



lo:: 



the worthy meml^er from Midland, who also 
wanted his people to have a vote in killing off 
the ambitions of "those mosquito fighters'" at 
the mouth of the river, as the inland settlers 
were wont to refer sneeringly to the men who 
dared to seek homes amid the malaria and deso- 
lation of the wild and wooded lowlands. The 
member from Saginaw was willing to have 
the bill pass in this thrice altered way, satisfied 
to leave the matter to his constituency, and 
happy himself to be rid of the bother on the 
floor of the House. The representative from 
Midland County urged the claim of his county 
for the privilege of voting on this proposition. 
which seemed to concern them so little, with 
the undoubted purpose of later urging the rea- 
sons why Midland and not Saginaw should 
have that sneered at, but none the less growing, 
settlement near the bay. 

By mutual consent the bill as thrice 
amended was passed by the Legislature on Feb- 
ruary 17, 1857, and was duly signed by Gov- 
ernor Bingham. The territory included in 
Bay County by this act was taken partly from 
Saginaw and Midland, and included all of 
Arenac County, which was attached to Mid- 
land for judicial purposes. It comprised town- 
ship 13 north, range 6 east; all the north half 
of township 13 north, range 5 east, that lies 
east of the Saginaw River; all of township 14 
north, ranges 3, 4, 5 and 6 east; all 
of townships 15, 16, 17 and 18 north, 
ranges 3, 4 and 5 east; all of townships 
19 and 20 north, ranges 3,4. 5,6, 7 and 8 east ; 
and the Charity Islands in Saginaw Bay. All 
this territory lies around the shores of Saginaw 
Bay, including the valleys of the Saginaw, 
Kawkawlin and Pinconning rivers, which are 
still within the boundaries of Bay County 
proper, and the Pine Rifle and Au Ores rivers, 
now in Arenac County, and the Ouanicasse 
River, now in Tuscola County. In this entire 



territory but two townships were regularly or- 
ganized — Hampton and Williams. The changes 
of the original boundaries have come since 
then ; as this vast territory became settled, the 
inhabitants wanted to set up housekeeping for 
themselves, much as Bay wanted to do in 1855. 
and did do in 1857. To our credit be it said, 
we have never compelled other communities 
to fight for their rights, as Bay County had to 
do, until the Supreme Court set things right 
in May, 1858. 

In accordance with the provisions of the en- 
abling act, Bay, Saginaw, Midland and Arenac 
counties all voted on the proposition on the 
first Monday in April, 1857. In embryo Bay 
City a new light had dawned since the bitter 
fight was waged against the new county at 
Lansing, and some of those w'ho were most 
emphatic in opposition to the separation now 
became the most urgent advocates of a separate 
county. Once again note the parallel between 
the evolution of the forces of progress and de- 
velopment in the fight for separation in 1857, 
and the endeavor for union in 1905. When the 
votes were counted at Birney Hall that rainy 
April evening in 1857, the entire settlement 
was out in the storm, anxiously awaiting the 
result. 

The vote of Bay County was almost unani- 
mous in favor of the separate organization, the 
vote being 204 for separation, and only 14 
against! Saginaw and Midland counties voted 
almost as unanimously against the separation, 
as was to be expected, and they forthwith con- 
tended that the act creating Bay County w^as 
null and void, and the Circuit Court at Saginaw 
continued to claim jurisdiction over Bay 
County. Most of the conservative and peace- 
loving residents of Bay were resigned to their 
fate, and proceeded to accept the discouraging 
consequences of that election with such good 
grace as they could command. Not so Hon. 



io6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Chester H. Freeman, the framer of the act, and 
one of its sturdiest champions. He contended 
from the day tlie act was passed, that the Legis- 
lature did not intend to have Saginaw and Mid- 
land vote on it, and that the words "at the 
township meetings to be holden in said coun- 
ty" clearly proved that the election was to be 
held by Bay County alone. A liandful of stal- 
wart and progressive citizens alone took Judge 
Freeman's view of the case. 

Determined to have a settlement of the case 
one way or the other, the township authorities 
called an election of county ol^cers to be held 
the first Monday in June, 1857. So little faith 
did some of the more conservative settlers have 
in this election, that they did not even take the 
trouble to vote, and consequently less than half 
as many votes were cast for the first county 
officers as had previously been cast in favor of 
the separate county organization. The officials 
elected, however, were determined to see the 
case through on its merits, and the following 
day qualified for their respective offices, to 
which they were later duly entrusted by the 
Supreme Court : Sheriff, William Simon ; 
clerk, Elijah Catlin ; treasurer, James Watson; 
register of deeds, Thomas M. Bligh; judge of 
probate, Sydney S. Campbell ; prosecuting at- 
torney, Chester H. Freeman ; circuit court com- 
missioner, Stephen P. Wright ; surveyor, B. F. 
Partridge; coroner, William C. Spicer. These 
were the first county officials of Bay County, 
and the ticket was as well balanced as any 
ever named since at the polls. 

Hardly had this organization been per- 
fected, when Saginaw and Alidland protested 
the election as illegal, and for some months 
things were badly mixed in the valley. The 
collection of taxes and all proceedings in court 
were practically paralyzed. Litigants would 
start suit in Bay County, and if the judgment 
was against them would promptly appeal to 



the Saginaw Circuit Court, claiming Bay had 
no jurisdiction and vice versa. 

Thus inatters drifted with clash of juris- 
diction and worse confusion, until even the 
most ardent separationists advised giving way 
and postponing the organization of Bay County 
until a more opportune time. But Judge Free- 
man stood like the proverbial stone wall. Dan- 
iel Burns was chargel by Dr. Dion Birney 
with having committed a perjury in Hampton 
township, June 29, 1857. Hon. John IMoore, 
prosecuting attorney for Saginaw County, rep- 
resented the complainant, and Chester H. Free- 
man, prosecuting attorney for Bay County, 
was retained by Daniel Burns, who entered 
into the spirit of this test case with all the zeal 
he could command. Although all the leading 
lawyers in ]\Iichigan expressed the opinion 
that the act creating Bay County was null and 
void, Judge Freeman decided to carry this test 
case to the Supreme Court. Before going to 
this last court of appeal, he once more tried to 
get the Legislature to put Bay County on its 
feet. But the Saginaw and Midland represent- 
atives were as immovable as before. Then 
Judge Freeman tried a stratagem that nearly 
succeeded. He drew a bill, defining where the 
court should be held in the judicial district in 
which Bay City was situated which, had it 
become law, would have established Bay 
County at once as a separate organization. 
Here is the outline of the bill ; "It is hereby 
provided that the circuit judge of the district 
in which Bay County is situated shall hold 
court in Bay City, in said territory, and shall 
hear, try, and determine all suits commenced 
in said circuit court in said territory, and all 
appeals to the same." The final section con- 
firmed jurisdiction in this territory! This bill 
met the approval of the Governor and of the 
Saginaw and Midland representatives and 
promptly passed the House on Friday. As 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



107 



tlie Governor had left the Capitol, and did not 
return until Monday, this bill was not signed: 
when about to sign, the Governor on reading it 
again before signing, recognized its force, 
called the opposing representatives' attention to 
it : as Messrs. Jerome and Ashnum wished to 
recall it, it was never approved. The Repub- 
lican party leaders at Lansing were not very 
anxious to create another new county, which 
they had reason to believe would be largely 
Democratic, and they hastened to put a quietus 
on the settlement's ambitions. So anxious were 
some of the local Democratic party leaders of 
those years to have Bay County recognized as 
a separate organization, that they promised 
to send Hon. James Birney as the first repre- 
sentative from this county, in case it was then 
recognized. This was not an idle promise, for 
Judge Birney soon after entered the State Sen- 
ate from this senatorial district. 

The stalwart defenders of Bay County's 
interests never faltered in the face of these re- 
peated rebufYs. Realizing that there was no 
hope for the county in the Legislature, they 
turned resolutely to the courts for a settlement 
of their case. Chester H. Freeman and Stephen 
P. Wright prepared to carry the Birney vs. 
Burns suit to the Supreme Court, and they 
called in as assistant counsel Hon. William M. 
Fenton, of Genessee County. The defendant, 
Mr. Burns, through his attorney. Judge Free- 
man, filed a l)ill of abatement, alleging that 
*'tlie said supposed offense, if any was com- 
mitted, was committed within the jurisdiction 
of Bay County, and not within the jurisdiction 
of the Saginaw Circuit Court." L'pon this 
plea, issue was taken, and the case was made 
and certified to the Supreme Court, and was 
heard at the May term, at Detroit. 

Judge Freeman had staked his reputation 
as a lawyer upon the result of this suit, and he 
prepared a full and exhaustive argument in the 



case. Unfortunately the strain and worry 
over this case brought on a fever, so that at the 
very time the case was brought up. Judge Free- 
man was prostrated. Mrs. Freeman promptly 
gathered up all the papers in the case, togetlier 
with Judge Freeman's arguments, and sent 
them all to Mr. Fenton, at Flint. The case had 
meanwhile attracted State-wide attention, as 
citizens of all the counties interested asked the 
opinions of various attorneys throughout the 
State. When Mr. Fenton reached Detroit, he 
was urged by some of the most prominent 
attorneys in the State to let the case go by de- 
fault, as he would only lay himself liable to 
ridicule and defeat. He was assured that not 
a single attorney, aside from Judge Freeman 
himself, had any faith in the case of Bay Coun- 
ty. Fortunately for Bay County, IMr. Fenton 
was an honest and fearless citizen, and he as- 
sured his advisers that he knew of points in the 
case which they overlooked, that he had prom- 
ised Mrs. Freeman to see the case through to 
the end to the best of his ability, and this 
he was now prepared to do. He had not gone 
far into the argument, before the listening 
jurists conceded that there was some plausi- 
bility to his line of reasoning, and before he 
closed many of the most eminent practition- 
ers became themselves convinced that Bay 
County had taken a perfectly legal and proper 
course under the circumstances. Seldom had 
any case aroused such wide-spread interest 
among the members of Michigan's bench and 
bar, and many were the arguments pro and con 
that May evening in the metropolis of the State, 
on the chances of the Supreme Court sustain- 
ing the little settlement on the Saginaw River. 
The case was submitted just before the close 
of court that afternoon, and ^Ir. Fenton and 
the few Bay citizens who had wandered up ta 
Detroit to hear the case slept but little that 
night. At the opening of court next morning. 



io8 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



the now famous decision was handed down, 
sustaining every contention of Bay County, 
and declaring the county duly and properly 
organized. The decision is found on page 1 14, 
5th Michigan Reports, First Cooley. 

A messenger who had been waiting for the 
decision for hours, started on a speedy horse to 
bring the news to Bay County, this being a 
faster route than coming by stage to Saginaw 
and by canoe down the ri\'er. But the news 
first reached here by the Detroit boat, which 
left shortly after the Supreme Court had ren- 
dered its decision. The progressive and enter- 
prising citizens who had never lost hope in the 
establishment of a new county, with the county 
seat in their midst, were naturally elated, and 
even the more easy-going and indifferent cit- 
izens came out of their hard shells long enough 
to take part in a genuine backwoods celebra- 
tion. Thomas Rogers and a corps of willing 
and muscular assistants, having no cannon to 
sound the glad tidings, hammered the old anvil 
until the welkin rang with the merry music. 
Old fowling pieces were brought forth, loaded 
to the muzzle, and their explosion sounded to 
the up-river settlers like a battle down the river. 
All the instruments of music and of noise were 
called into use, and good cheer flowed, as it 
only could flow, in an open-hearted and prim- 
iti^•e community. 

The venerable recorder of those far-reach- 
ing and exciting events reports in the cptaint 
style of those years, that this cannonading did 
drown some of the sleepy ideas of some of the 
sleepy people of this infant city, and did awaken 
them to a realization that from their little ham- 
let there did lead a sure road to prosperity and 
wealth, did they but realize it, and try it out. 
"The glad news brought the people to their 
right senses! Since then the city and county 
liave rushed along the rough track of building 
lip and burning down, and rebuilding in more 



substantial style." So far. General Partridge. 

In view of events in recent years, one would 
almost believe that the effects of that early 
stimulant had worn off, that some of our able 
citizens have again wandered away from that 
\italizing road that by the value of our natural 
resources must lead to prosperity and success. 
A-'erily we are dozing off again, resting on our 
oars, drifting with the tide, waiting with the 
stoical indifference of the original aborigine in- 
habitant of this region for something easy to 
turn up. And to the south and east and west 
.of us, more enterprising and wide-awake com- 
munities in [Michigan were snatching from our 
slumbering brow the honor, prestige and busi- 
ness, of being the third city in Michigan. But 
happily for us, like our ancestors of 48 years 
ago, over many obstacles and seemingly im- 
passable barriers, we have pursued our court- 
ship ; Wenona of old has won forever and ever 
the strong arm and devoted co-operation of the 
older community. Joined always together by 
the commercial ties created by the mighty Sag- 
inaw, it remained for the revival of 1905 to 
unite those which had ever belonged together. 
And just as the victory of Bay County in 1858 
roused the slumbering energies and gave re- 
newed hope to the pioneers of Bay County, so 
let us strive to gain new hope, new life, new en- 
terprise, progress and prosperity from the 
united strength of the consolidated cities. 

Certain it is, that this valley in 1858 at once 
assumed a place in the State it had not pre- 
^■iously occupied. The little settlement at once 
found a place on the maps of the country. Those 
already here sent the good tidings to friends in 
distant localities, and a stream of settlers was 
soon coming this way. Business and profes- 
sional men like to be in a county seat, and the 
new dignity of Bay City attracted some of the 
men who later did much for the city and 
countv. The men alreadv here felt the vitaliz- 



\ 




z 






Uh Ifl 



G^ 







AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



Ill 



ing influence of the new spirit wliich seemed 
to animate ex'crytliing and e\'en-body. and the 
men of means, who often clung timidly to their 
cash, preferring to have it lie idle in distant 
banks, now called this vital spark home, to 
combine with the brawn and sinew of labor 
for the mutual benefit of both. New mills 
were erected. Stores were stocked with mer- 
chandise that at first seemed all out of propor- 
tion to the demand or needs of the rising com- 
munity, only to be exhausted within a few short 
months and requiring replenishing. That 
"business creates business" was proven on every 
hand. The money that one enterprising citizen 
l)ut into circulation drew out the hidden gold 
of his neighbor. Fortunes were accumulated in 
the next 30 years in every avenue of business 
and trade. The wheels of trade, industry and 
commerce, stopped for many years by the 
])anic of 1837, were again set in motion all 
over the country, and nowhere was this vitaliz- 
ing inlluence felt more keenly than in this 
"neck of the woods." 

Bay City was advertised from ocean to 
ocean by this tenacious fight of a handful of 
men for recognition in the councils and the 
business of the great young State of Michigan. 
The rivalry between the older community at 
Saginaw and its robust offspring at the head of 
navigation began in earnest, and soon became 
a by-word throughout the country. However 
keen and strenuous that rivalry may have been 
and is now; however frequently it may have 
verged to a point where the rest of the State 
held its l)rcat]i in anticipation of a general riot 
call, one thing this rivalry has always done for 
the valley : It has given us ])ublicity and unlim- 
ited free advertising abroad. And since com- 
petition is the life of trade, and publicity its 
handmaiden, this keen rivalry has at least done 
as much as all other factors combined, to call 
the attention of the restless world outside to 



the wonderful advantages of this valley of the 
Sauks, so blessed by Nature, and so well de- 
\-eloped by its pioneer sons. The first clash 
came when Bay wanted to set up housekeeping 
for itself, and through the indomitable spirit 
of its leaders. Bay won. Many have been the 
clashes between the vigorous old colony above 
the Carrollton sand-bar, and the vigorous set- 
tlement in the lowlands near Saginaw Bay, 
but the most far-reaching clash was that legis- 
lative and legal battle fought to a successful 
issue by the cohorts of Bay in 1858. 

The county officials elected the previous 
June immediately took up their ofticial duties, 
except William Simon, sheriff-elect, who had 
removed from the county; B. F. Partridge was 
appointed in his place. The first meeting of 
the Board of Supervisors was held August 10, 
1858. Hampton township was represented by 
Sydney S. Campbell and Williams township 
by George W. Smock. Judge Campbell was 
unanimously elected chairman and, by the same 
unanimity, Mr. Smock became the committee 
of the whole. It was also unaniously voted by 
these two supervisors, that the chairman was 
entitled to a vote on all questions coming be- 
fore the board. Suggestive of the times and the 
place was the first disbursement of the board, 
when they paid $88 to Indians for 1 1 wolf 
certificates, and $24 to pale face hunters for 
three wolf certificates. They also paid $70.43 
for constable bills, indicating that the justice 
courts were grinding merrily, although the jus- 
tices' fees amounted to only $66.61. Some en- 
terprising citizen demanded $10 for posting 
election notices, but the board concluded $5 
was enough for that service, which amount was 
allowed. They also allowed August Kaiser 
$r for boarding prisoners. Judged by that 
standard, the cost of living must have been 
trivial in 1858 in this settlement, compared to 
the accredited rates of 1905. While the set- 



I 12 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



tlement was still in its swaddling clothes, still 
the supervisors, after due diligence and impar- 
tial application of their tax yard-stick, found 
the assessed valuation to be $530,589, while 
their tax levy for the first year was $1,165. -^^ 
one looks at the several pictures of Bay City 
and vicinitv about that time, one would find 
it difficult to size up the property exposed to 
view at anything like the imposing array of 
figures, produced officially by that able two- 
man board. Evidently no one was overlooked, 
and every dollar's worth of property was made 
to pay its fair and equal share for the privilege 
of prospering with the prosperous and promis- 
ing young community. The county officials 
were not paid in accordance with their evident 
worth, but rather in strict accordance with 
the visible means of the county as then consti- 
tuted. The energetic prosecuting attorney, 
Judge Freeman, received the then princely 
sum of $50 per year for his public services, 
and the other officials were paid in proportion. 
The supervisors appointed E. N. Bradford, 
Israel Catlin and Jule B. Hart as superintend- 
ents of the poor, for verily "the poor ye shall 
have always with j-e." The poor board held 
its first meeting October 10, 1858. The county 
treasurer's report showed that county poor or- 
ders to the amount of $78.14 had been paid, 
and $2.85 remained in the poor fund. 

Things moved fast in the new county, and 
the two-man board was soon more than doubled 
by the creation of new townships. In Febru- 
ary, 1859, Arenac was erected into a township, 
with Daniel Williams, N. W. Sillibridge and 
Daniel Shaw on the Board of Inspectors. Peter 
Marksman was elected supervisor, but being 
unable to act, M. D. Bourasso was appointed 
and became the third member of the board. A 
special meeting was called in March, 1859, 
when the board erected the township of Ports- 
mouth, with J. M. ]\Iiller, Appleton Stevens 



and William Daglish on the first Board of In- 
spectors, and Appleton Stevens was elected 
supervisor. Shortly after, the township of 
Bangor was created, with Scott W. Sayles as 
the first supervisor chosen by the constituency 
then residing on the west bank of the Saginaw 
River. Dr. George E. Smith represented 
Hampton in the fall of 1859. He was chosen 
chairman of the board, then consisting of five 
members. 

The election in November, 185S, brought 
about some changes in the county officials, the- 
successful ones being as follows : Nathaniel 
Whittemore, sheriff; Thomas W^ Lyons, clerk; 
W. L. Sherman, circuit court commissioner; 
T. \Y. Watkins, surveyor. Those honored 
with succeeding terms were as follows : Ches- 
ter H. Freeman, prosecuting attorney ; Thomas 
M. Bligh, register of deeds ; James Watson, 
treasurer: Sydney S. Campbell, judge of pro- 
bate. 

In the fall of 1858 a cheap wooden building 
for jail purposes was erected on what is now 
Sixth street, near Saginaw street. Sheriff Part- 
ridge did not have any vicious prisoners, for the 
shack would not ha\-e held them for a minute. 
This primitive bastile was destroyed by' fire 
in 1863. 

At the first meeting of the Board of Super- 
\-isors in 1858, the county seat was located 
in Bay City. The following year the enter- 
prising supervisor from Portsmouth nearly kid- 
naped the distinction from the larger settle- 
ment. \Mien the aroused Bay Cityans heard 
of the invasion of their prerogatives in that 
smooth manner, they made a counter demon- 
stration and at the next session of the Board of 
Supervisors the county seat was restored to 
Bay City. 

The projectors and sponsors of Bay City 
had a fair idea of the probable trend of the 
county's development, when they set aside two- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



II- 



lots on Center avenne, wliere tlie Court House 
and County Jail are now located, for the pros- 
pective county headquarters. 

The first case in the Probate Court of Bay 
County was the appointment of ]\Iichae! Win- 
terhalter as administrator of the estate of Fred- 
erick Wintermur. deceased. 

The Legislature in February, 1883, created 
Arenac County, taking most of its territory 
from Bay County, including the following 
townships, and in order to indicate their popu- 
lation we append with each the vote cast by 
each at the presidential election in 1880: 
Arenac, 63; Au Ores, 61; Clayton, 62; Deep 
River, 76; Lincoln, including the village of 
Standish, 80; Mason, 34; Moffatt, 31; Stand- 
ish„ 69; Whitney, 49. Arenac was organized by 
the supervisors of Bay County immediately 
after their organization in February. 1859, and 
was important at that time because of the lum- 
bering along the Rifle River. Au Gres was or- 
ganized Ijy tiie same board in February, 1870. 
Its first supervisor was W. R. Bates, then a 
young attorney, later representing Bay in the 
House at Lansing, 1871-72, and in 1905 we 
find him L'nited States marshal for Eastern 
Michigan ! Lumbering along the Au Gres River 
was its main industry while the township be- 
longed to Bay. Clayton township was also 
organized in February, 1870, Avhile Deep River 
and Standish were organized by act of the 
Legislature in February, 1873, Moffatt and 
Mason by the Board of Supervisors in 1874, 
and \\'hitney was erected as a township on 
October 16, 1879. 

On the first Monday in June, 1883, ihis 
offshoot of Bay licld its first county election, 
naming men who for years had stood high in 
the counsels of their foster county. The fol- 
lowing were tlie first ofiicers of Arenac Coun- 
ty: George Keeney, sheriff; P. M. Angus, 
treasurer; William Smith, register of deeds; 



F. E. Carscallen, clerk; John Bullock, judge 
of probate; Larry McHugli, prosecutor. The 
last named official later moved to Bay County, 
served as county drainage commissioner for a 
term of years, and in this year of grace, 1905, 
this old soldier bobs up serenely as candidate 
for first justice of the peace of Greater Bay City 
on the G. O. P. ticket ! While Bay County thus 
lost nine townships by the simple stroke of a 
pen at Lansing, Bay City has never lost their 
business. Then, as now^. Bay City was the 
mart for the residents of Arenac, and then, as 
now. Point Lookout on Saginaw Bay in Are- 
nac County was the most popular camping 
ground for Bay City folks during the heated 
season of midsummer. Many Bay Cityans 
have moved across the northern county line, 
creating new ties that still bind these good 
neighbors together. During the Encampment 
of the Grand Army of the Republic for North- 
eastern Michigan at Standish, September 14- 
16, 1904, Company B, 3rd Infantry, M. N. G., 
of Bay City, 75 strong, were the honored 
guests of the Arenac County people at Stand- 
ish, camping on the Court House square. They 
were made to feel, as their hosts put it, that 
"they were right at home," for was not Bay 
County the "mother of Arenac"? And the 
greater the prosperity of Arenac County, the 
better will be the business of Bay City. 

The first authentic figures on Bay County's 
population were secured in the United States 
census of i860, when the county was credited 
with having 3,164 people. The growth of the 
county is well indicated in the official census 
returns of the next 40 years. In 1864 the 
population of Bay County was 5.517; in 1870 
it was 15,900; and in 1874, 24,832. The next 
20 years were the booming years of the lumber 
industry, and the rural townships secured the 
overflow in the way of lumber camps, traders 
and settlers. The population in 1880 was 



114 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



38,081; in 1884, 51,221; in 1890, 56,412; in 
1894, 61,304; and in 1900 Bay County had 
62,378 inhabitants, with a total area of 437 
square miles. This was the last Federal cen- 
sus. The State census in 1904 shows that Bay 
County contains 13.422 families, with 32,108 
males, 31,340 females and a total population 
of 63,348. 

Since the male population is found to out- 
number their fair sisters, we have one of the 
reasons why there are so few spinsters in Bay 
and why Cupid is so extremely busy. We find 
that 10,234 marriages have been performed in 
•Bay County since the present license law went 
into effect, in 1894, and 587 marriages were 
performed in 1904. 

The birth rate in this healthy valley has 
never given cause for complaint, and our virile 
race is growing nicely, with no signs of race 
suicide, so much mooted in the older and de- 
crepit civilization of the Far East. Bay County 
was blessed with 1,378 babies in 1899; 1,266 
in 1900; 1,382 in 1901 ; 1,512 in 1903, and the 
last year found it difficult to overcome this en- 
couraging increase, but managed it liy just one 
little "dumpling," the total births for 1904 
being just 1,513. 

These vital statistics still further prove that 
Bay County is a good place to live in, since 
Nature has Ijeen aided by man's ingenuity and 
industry, creating thriving farms amid the once 
malaria and mosc|uito-breeding swamps and 
lowlands, by reviewing the ledger that is the 
end of things, just as the births are the begin- 
ning. Since 1890 there have been 9,307 deaths 
in Bay County, of which number 968 occurred 
in 1904. 

Since President Roosevelt has called public 
attention to the divorce evil, through his special 
message to Congress, in January, 1905, urging 
Congress to pass some general divorce law, be- 
cause some States are too lax in protecting the 



sanctity of the marriage vow, it will be espe- 
cially interesting to note that despite Judge T. 
F. Shepard's endeavor to grant decrees only in 
worthy cases, wdiere in his judgment both the 
individuals and the community would be better 
off, were the marriage ties severed, the list of 
divorces in Bay County, — the i8th Judicial 
Circuit, — grows constantly. Under the provis- 
ions of the law of 1897, 40 divorce cases were 
filed here in 1899, of which 19 were granted. 
In 1900, 56 divorces were started and 38 
granted. In 1901, 62 divorces were asked for 
and 42 granted. 1902 showed the high-water 
mark for divorces in Bay County, as well as 
throughout the country. The reaction and re- 
vulsion of public sentiment, is plainly evident 
in the figures for the last three years. In 1902, 
67 divorce suits were started and 54 granted! 
In 1903 we find 80 pending; 55 were started, 
41 were granted^, i refused and i withdrawn. 
In 1904, 64 were pending, 65 were started, 32 
were granted, i refused, 2 withdrawn, and 25 
were contested and are pending, together with 
39 others, where there is no contest ! At this 
March term (1905) of the Circuit Court, 
Judge Shepard has refused one of the most 
conspicuous divorce cases, owing to the promi- 
nence of the contesting parties, the case being 
Moore vs. Moore, and in his finding he recites 
that their applications are based on such differ- 
ences as arise daily in the lives of married peo- 
ple, but are wisely passed over or adjusted, and 
might have been in this instance, resulting 
among other things in ruining the husband's 
dental business, and the wife's application as 
well as the husband's cross bill for divorce were 
refused. 

Bay County, with its sons of many nations, 
has ever presented an interesting study for the 
statesman and the politician. A review of our 
popular vote for 47 years will show that while 
Michigan, the birthplace of the Republican 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



115 



party, has ever since 1854 stood with that 
party, Bay County until very recently voted 
w ith the minority. Here are the figures : 
1858. — For Governor: Wisner, R., 140; Stu- 
art, D., 270. Bay's first presidential vote came 
at the most critical juncture in the history of 
our country, when Abraham Lincoln held up 
the banner of the liberty-loving North, held in 
1840 and 1844 by Hon. James G. Birney, of 
Bay City! Yet if we are to judge by the vote, 
Birney's work had been best appreciated away 
from home, for Bay gave the martyr, Abraham 
Lincoln, R., but 311 votes, to Douglas, D., 324! 
For Governor, Austin Blair, R., 306; Barry, 
D., 12-/. In 1862, Blair, R., 256; Stout, D., 
390! Evidently the peace party had a strong 
following in Bay! In 1864, Lincoln received 
462; General McClellan, D., 584! For Gov- 
ernor, Crapo, R., 460; Fenton, D., 586. By 
1866 the war has been successfully ended, and 
many battle-scarred veterans are seeking this 
peaceful and prosperous valley to begin life 
anew in the realms of industry, in field, mill or 
factory, and the vote shows the impetus of these 
veterans, for, in 1866, Governor Crapo re- 
ceived 713 votes, to Williams, D., Ti^y, and in 
1868, General Grant carried the county for the 
first time for his party, with 1,176 votes, to 
Seymour, D., 1,081, while for Governor, Bald- 
win, R., received 1,157 votes, to Moore, D., 
1,098. In 1870, Bay showed signs of back- 
sliding. Governor Baldwin receiving 1,186 
votes, to Comstock, D., 1,101. In 1872, Gen- 
eral Grant polled 1.948 votes, to 1,270 for 
Horace Greeley, and 46 Prohibitionists went 
on record for their party faith, while Bagley 
for Governor received 1,943 votes to Blair, 
Lib., 1,341. In 1874, Governor Bagley lost 
the county by a vote of 1,742 to 1,943 for 
Chamberlain, D. By 1876 the reaction was 
complete. Gen. Rutherford B. Hayes receiving 
but 2,407 votes to 2,840 for Samuel J. Tilden! 



The influx of German immigrants is also 
noticeable in the vote on Governor, Croswell, 
R., receiving but 2,405 votes, to Webber, D., 
2,859! In 1878, Governor Crosswell received 
1,387 votes to Barnes, D., 1,592. In 1880, 
General James A. Garfield's popularity here 
carried the county by 2,404, to 2,068 for Gen- 
eral Hancock, D., while Jerome, the Republi- 
can candidate for Governor, lost it by 2,367, 
to Holloway, D., 2,438, and Governor Jerome 
fared even worse in 1882, with 2,156, to 3,318 
for Begole, Fusionist (who was elected that 
year), and 818 for May, National. 

This was the first election the writer wit- 
nessed in this country. Although but 10 years 
old, I noticed that my father, w'ith most of the 
German residents, was a stalwart Democrat, 
and that the French, Polish and other residents 
of foreign birth voted the Democratic ticket 
straight. Let me say in passing, that our be- 
loved mother disagreed with father, being a 
stalwart though silenced Republican, loving 
the memory of the martyr Presidents — Lincoln 
and Garfield — and her influence was para- 
mount with her children, for her two sons cast 
their first vote in after years for the political 
faith of "mother," and her two daughters in 
their voteless way have ever been ardent mis- 
sionaries for the "G. O. P." Often in the years 
that followed, with the gradual change in the 
political complexion of Bay County, have I 
wondered if in other homes other mothers were 
exerting that same influence in the same direc- 
tion. For it is certain that few of the old stal- 
warts have changed their political faith or 
tenets, and that the change has been almost en- 
tirely brought about by the "First Voters," the 
rising generation in Bay. This is particularly 
true of the native children, and the sons of 
German and Polish settlers. It is less notice- 
able in the voting districts where the French 
and Irish vote is largely represented. 



ii6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



But to resume: In 1884, Grover Cleveland 
carried Bay 4.963 votes, to James G. Blaine, 
2,916, and St. John, Prohi., 161. It should be 
noted that Cleveland received 3.436 Democrat 
votes, and 1.534 Greenback and Anti-Monop- 
oly votes. Gen. Russell A. Alger, now United 
States Senator from Michigan^ in 1884 re- 
ceived but 2,930 votes in Bay, to 4,683 for 
Begole, Fus. In 1886, Cyrus G. Luce received 
2,957 votes for Governor, to Yaple, Fus.. 
4.305. In 1888, Gen. Benjamin Harrison 
fared a little better, getting 4.378 votes, to 
Cleveland. D., 5,714, and Fiske, Prohi., 127. 

In 1888, Governor Luce secured 4.364 
votes to W. R. Burt, Fus., 5,422. Governor 
Luce, one of Michigan's sterling sons, and a 
public man of the old school, died at his home, 
Coldwater, Michigan, March 18, 1905, of 
heart failure, aged 80 years. He was a rugged 
representative of the common people, and an 
honest defender of the public interests. With 
him the Republican party went out of power 
for one term, for in 1890 E. B. Winans, D.. 
was elected Governor, Bay giving him 5.152 
votes, to Turner. R., 3,216. In 1892, General 
Harrison received 4,587 votes; Grover Cleve- 
land, D., 5.714; Bidwell, Prohi., 187. That 
year John T. Rich redeemed Michigan for the 
Republicans, Bay giving him 4,652 votes for 
Governor, to Morse, D., 5.783. 

In 1894 Bay County had the honor of nam- 
ing the Democratic candidate for Governor of 
Michigan. Hon. Spencer O. Fisher, formerly 
Mayor of West Bay City and Congressman 
from the loth Congressional District, being 
selected to contest the second term of Governor 
Rich, the sage farmer and statesman, who in 
1905 is still in the public service as collector of 
customs for Eastern Michigan. This guber- 
natorial contest, in which Bay County sup- 
ported a favorite son, was made remarkable by 
caustic recriminations within the Democratic 
party itself. Congressman Fisher owned a fine 



white horse, which for years has been and in 
1905 is still in demand, for use in public pa- 
rades and on public occasions. This horse led 
an Orangemen's celebration parade on Orange- 
men's Day, the owner permitting all celebra- 
tions to use that horse, but even this horse was 
made a campaign issue, and as "Fisher's White 
Horse" is still a fixture in Michigan folk-lore 
and local political annals. Bay gave 4.933 
votes to Hon. Spencer O. Fisher, and 4.365 to 
Governor Rich. 

The campaign of 1896 went down in local 
political history as the hardest fought campaign 
and while the vote eventually showed Imt a 
narrow margin for the silver-tongued Bryan 
of the Platte, yet for a time it looked like a 
landslide. The Greenbackers. Fusionists and 
Democrat all rallied to his standard, and many 
stalwart Republicans wandered from the fold, 
and only prodigious work saved a stampede 
locally. Thousands were on the streets of Bay 
City on the night of that memorable election. 
The advocates of "Free Silver" had their in- 
ning when the vote of Bay was announced as 
giving William Jennings Bryan 6.296, the late 
lamented President William McKinley, 6.037, 
General Palmer, Gold Democrat, 151, and Lev- 
ering, Prohi., 63. Later in the night, as the 
returns from the State and country at large 
came in, the local minority partisans started a 
celebration in honor of the national victory of 
their standard-bearer. This same campaign 
brought out another of Michigan's foremost 
sons, in Hazen S. Pingree, the famous shoe- 
maker and philanthropist of Detroit, who in 
his race for the office of Governor carried Bay 
by 6,307 votes, to Sligh, Fus., 6,030. Then 
came the war with Spain, and with it the turn- 
ing of the political tide in Bay County, for in 
1898 the late Governor Pingree received 5.617 
votes to 3.899 for Whiting, D., 76 for Cheever, 
Prohi., and 24 for Hasseler. Soc. Labor. As 
secretary of the Republican County Committee, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



117 



tlie writer was in tlic thick of tliis friendly Init 
spirited fray. Bay sent almost the entire Re- 
publican county ticket into office, and for the 
first time in many years the judge of pro- 
bate, county treasurer, county clerk, circuit 
court commissioner, Representati\-es and Sena- 
tor were of that faith. 

The election of 1900 was chiefly remarka- 
ble in demonstrating that the change of senti- 
ment in Bay was permanent, for President 
William ilcKinley carried the county by 6.462 
votes, to 5,081 for Bryan, D., and 233 for John 
G. W'oolley, Prohi., and 23 for Eugene Debs, 
Soc. Lab. Gov. Aaron T. Bliss, of Saginaw, 
received 5,896 votes, to 5,907 for Maybury, D., 
in 1900: and in 1902 he received 3,824 to 4,223 
for L. T. Durand, D. The old rivalry between 
the cities of the Saginaw Valley had brought 
Bay County into the 1900 convention at Grand 
Rapids for Justus S. Stearns, of Ludington, 
and undoubtedly contributed to the adverse 
vote for the up-river resident at Ixjth these 
elections. It may be interesting to future gen- 
erations to know the political division in the 
several townships and wards of Bay County, as 
shown in this table giving the vote for Gover- 
nor in the election of 1900, and the population 
for the different civil divisions, according to the 
I'. S. Census of that year: 

Population Aaron T. Lorenzo 

1900. Bliss, T. Durand, 

Republican. Democrat. 

Bangor township 1,195 I33 83 

Beaver township i,S.19 136 102 

Frankenlust township ....1,395 78 135 

Fraser township 1,656 180 gg 

Garfield township 555 106 20 

Gibson township 761 92 34 

Hampton township 3.319 261 344 

Kawkawlin township 1,864 163 140 

Merritt township 1,562 121 122 

Monitor township 2,150 145 193 

Mount Forest township . . . 350 65 33 

Pinconning township 2,104 196 147 

Portsmouth township 1,363 129 85 

Williams township 1,818 193 143 



Bay City 27,628 2,522 3,067 

1st Ward 3,213 280 412 

2d Ward 1,304 223 ' 184 

3d Ward 1,265 159 125 

4th Ward 3.529 350 362 

5th Ward 2,533 224 29S 

6th Ward 1,943 160 217 

7th Ward 1,318 172 129 

8th Ward 6,492 280 728 

gth Ward 1,458 227 144 

loth Ward 1,933 129 265 

inh Ward 2,640 318 203 

West Bay City 13,1 '9 1,376 1,160 

1st Ward 2,025 191 212 

2d Ward 3,396 283 337 

3d Ward 1,475 1/6 I59 

4th Ward 2,477 287 190 

5th Ward 2.008 216 143 

6th Ward 1,738 223 119 

Total for County. 62,378 5,896 5.907 

The Prohibition, Socialist and Socialist La- 
bor parties polled 264, 13 and 49 votes, respect- 
ively, making the total vote of the county 
12,129. 

In the general election of November, 1904. 
record-breaking in its results. President Theo- 
dore Roosevelt carried the county by the largest 
majority in its history, receiving 7,615 votes to 
3,095 for Parker, D. The Prohibitionists 
polled 245 ; Socialists, 76 ; Social Labor party, 
53 ; and People's party, 23. The Republican 
candidate for Governor, Fred M. Warner, 
polled 5.777 votes to 4,939 cast for Wood- 
bridge N. Ferris, D. ; 220 for James M. Shack- 
leton, Phohi. ; 63 for Clayton J. Lamb, Soc. ; 
and ^y for Meeko Meyer, Soc. Labor. The 
other candidates for State offices on the Repub- 
lican ticket ran far ahead of Governor Warner, 
in most cases receiving twice as many votes as 
their Democratic opponents. 

i8th Judicial Circuit. — One of the hottest 
fought elections for judicial honors was fought 
out on April 3, 1899, with the following re- 
sults: Judge Theodore F. Shepard, R., 4,571 ; 
Hon. Archibald McDonell, D., 3,315; Ex- 



ii8 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Judge Andrew Maxwell, Independent, 1,751. 
The term of office is for six years. At the 
April election, 1905, Chester L. Collins, R., and 
Edward E. Anneke, D., are the contestants. 

Bay County has for years taken a promi- 
nent part in the councils of the State. From 
the very organization of the county to this day, 
some of our ablest citizens have given freely 
of their time and experience to the service of the 
State, while still others have served in the halls 
of state at Lansing. 

On March 31, 1871, Hon. James Shearer 
was appointed one of the three building 
commissioners who planned and superin- 
tended the construction of the magnifi- 
cent Capitol of Michigan at Lansing. 
Hon. James Birney represented Bay County 
at the constitutional convention at Lan- 
sing, May 15 to August 22, 1867, and Hon. 
Herschel H. Hatch attended a similar conven- 
tion, representing Bay County, August 27 to 
October 16, 1873. William A. Bryce of Bay 
was Secretary of the State Senate, 1863-4. 

The State Senators from Bay have been : 
James Birney, 1859; Nathan B. Bradley, 1867; 
Harrison H. Wheeler, 1871-73; John D. 
Lewis, 1874; Charles Frost Gibson, 1881-82; 
Daniel Campbell, 1883; Columbus V. Tyler, 
1878-79 and 1889; Mendel J. Bialy, 1895; 
Frank L. ^^'estover, 1901-04; A. O. Heine, 
1905. 

The representatives from Bay have been : 
Henry Raymond, 1859; Theophilus C. Grier, 
1867; Luther Westover, 1869; Isaac Marston, 
1872 ; George Lewis, 1873-74; Nathan Knight, 
1877-79; Andrew Walton, 1879; Gen. B. F. 
Partridge, 1881-83; George P. Cobb, 1881-82; 
James A. VanKleeck, 1883; Hamilton M. 
Wright, 1883-85; Martin W. Brock, 1887; 
James A. Green, 1887; John Briske, 1889; 
Alexander Zagelmeyer, 1889; Birdsey Knight, 
1891 and 1894; Christopher Mohr, 1893 ; John 



H. Holmes, 1893; Sam. K. Bradford, 1895; 
John Donovan, 1895-99. (Mr. Donovan was 
"The Only Democrat" in the Legislature of 
1897, and was known far and wide as "Dono- 
van of Bay," and "Mr. Donovan, the Demo- 
cratic Party in the Legislature." He voted 
often with the opposition, making meritorious 
legislation unanimovis, but as often fought 
stoutly, solitary and alone, for the things he 
deemed right. He was the nominee of his par- 
ty for Secretary of State in 1902, and received 
a flattering vote from his neighbors in Bay 
County.) George L. Lusk, 1897-1900; John 
Washer, 1897-98 and 1903; G. W. Willis 
1901 ; Michael Riegel, 1901 ; John E. Bonser, 
1901 ; Clarence L. Sheldon, 1903-04; J. E. 
Brockway, 1905 ; Adam Walker, 1905. New- 
comb Clark, 1883-86, was Speaker of the 
House, 1885-86. 

The following State appointees have hailed 
from Bay : Commissioner of insurance, — Col. 
Henry S. Raymond, 1885-91, and William E. 
Magill, 1891-93; State salt inspector, Jabez B. 
Caswell, 1897-01 ; deputy State game warden, 
Theo. Trudell, 1900-06; deputy State labor 
commissioner, Richard H. Fletcher, 1905-08. 

The following residents of Bay have been 
elected or appointed to high official positions 
in Michigan : Lieutenant-Governor, Hon. 
James Birney, 1861 ; Auditor Generals, — Emil 
Anneke, 1863-66, and Henry H. Aplin, 1887- 
91 ; State land commissioner, Gen. Benjamin 
F. Partridge, 1877-78; Attorney-General, 
Isaac Marston, 1874; regent of the University 
of Michigan, James Shearer, 1880; brigade 
commander. Michigan National Guard, Gen. 
Charles R. Hawley, 1894-96; Members of 
State boards from 1902 to 1904: State Med- 
ical Board, Dr. Hemy B. Landon ; State Den- 
tal Board, Dr. Frank O. Gilbert; State Agri- 
cultural College, Thomas Frank Marston ; In- 
dustrial Home for Girls, i\Irs. May Stocking 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



119 



Knaggs ; Michigan Home for Feeble Minded, 
Dr. N. R. Gilbert; Michigan State Agricultur- 
al Society, Eugene Eifield (president 1904- 
05) and W. E. Boyden ; Michigan Department 
Commandery, G. A. R., 1901, James Van- 
Kleeck; aide-de-camp, 1903-04, Maj. L. G. 
Willcox; State Homeopathic Society, Dr. 
James H. Ball (general secretary 1903-05) ; 
State Teachers' Association, E. D. Palmer 
(secretary, 1903-05) ; Michigan Woman's 
Press Association, Mrs. Martha S. Root (vice- 
president, 1902-03), (deceased 1903) ; Republi- 
can State Central Committee, Dr. N. R. Gil- 
bert, 1904, and Devere Hall, 1905 ; Democratic 
State Central Committee, John E. Kinnane, 
1904-05 ; Prohibitionist State Central Com- 
mittee, Lewis R. Russell, 1904-05. 

The following residents of Bay County 
have been honored as presidential electors : 
Seth McLean, 1884; Harry P. Merrill, 1888; 
Worthy L. Churchill, 1892; Major Lyman G. 
Willcox, 1900 (elector-at-large) ; Maj. E. B. 
Nugent, 1900; Homer E. Buck (elector-at- 
large) 1904; Edgar B. Foss (messenger to de- 
liver the electoral vote of Michigan to Presi- 
dent Roosevelt at Washington), 1904-05. 

The following residents of Bay County 
have been elected Representatives in Congress : 
Hon. Nathan B. Bradley, 1875-77; Hon. Her- 
schel H. Hatch, 1883-84; Hon. Spencer O. 
Fisher, 1885-88; Hon. Frank W. Wheeler, 
1889-90; Hon. Thomas A. E. Weadock, 1891- 
94; Hon. Rousseau O. Crump, 1895-1902 (de- 
ceased May I, 1901) ; Hon. Henry H. Aplin, 
1901-02. For the first time since the organ- 
ization of the loth Congressional District, as 
now constituted. Bay County has not the hon- 
or of having the Representative, Flon. George 
A. Loud, 1903-06, hailing from Au Sable, 
Iosco County. 

Bay County has two prosperous building 



and loan associations. The J^Iutual Building 
and Loan Association of Bay County was in- 
corporated in 1890, with a capital of $2,000,- 
000; the following are the officers : President, 
Henry LI. Norrington ; secretary, Thomas E. 
Webster; treasurer, Charles R. Hawley. The 
Savings, Building and Loan Association of 
Bay County \Vas incorporated in 1887, with a 
capital of $1,000,000. The officers are : Presi- 
dent, Henry B. Smith; secretary, Allen G. 
Plum; treasurer, M. M. Andrews. 

Every township in Bay County is now 
reached by rural free delivery, the fine road 
system and well-distributed population mak- 
ing the laying out of routes easy for the Fed- 
eral officials. The post offices of the townships 
are being continued as heretofore, only five be- 
ing discontinued when the rural service went 
into effect. The post offices are: Arn, Au- 
burn, Bay Side, Bentley, Bertie. Crump. Cum- 
mings. Duel, Essexville, Garfield, Glover, Ham- 
blen, Kawkawlin, Laredo, Lengsville, Lin- 
wood, Loehne, Michie, Monitor, Mount For- 
est, Munger, North Williams, Pinconning, Te- 
bo, Upsala and Willard. 

The roster of county officials since the or- 
ganization is as follows : 

Judges of Probate. — Sydney S. Campbell, 
1858-66; Herschel H. Hatch, 1867-70; J. W. 
McMath, 1871-74; John Hyde, 1875-78; 
Thomas E. Webster, 1879-87; Hamilton M. 
Wright, 1888-99; Griffith H. Francis, 1900-05. 

Sheriffs. — William Simon, 1858; B. F. Par- 
tridge, 1858; Nathaniel Whittemore, 1859; 
Jonathan S. Barclay, 1860-61; R. H. Weid- 
man, 1862-63; Patrick J. Perrott, 1864-65; 
John G. Sweeney, 1866-67; Patrick J. Perrott, 
1868-69; Myron Bunnell, 1870-73; Martin W. 
Brock, 1874-77; George Washington, 1878- 
81 ; Charles F. Marsac, 1882-84: Martin Bren- 
nan, 1885; Benson Conklin, 1886-89; Henry 



I20 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Gunterman, 1890-93; Alexander Sutheiiand, 
1894-95; Henry Gunterman, 1896-99; Henry 
Kinney, 1900-03; John Hartley, 1904-05. 

County Treasurers. — James Watson, 1858- 
61; Algernon S. Hunger, 1862-67; Curtis 
Mnnger, 1868-71; Charles Snpe, 1872-73; W. 
H. Fennell, 1874-75; Jacob Knoblauch, 1876- 
"/y. James A. McKnight, 1878-79; Charles 
Babe. 1880-81; William E. Magill, 1882-83; 
Charles Babe, 18S4-85: William E. Magill, 
1886-89; W. V. Prybeski, 1890-93; Michael 
Riegel, 1894-97: Charles J. Smith, 1898-1901 ; 
Alexander Zagelmeyer, 1902-05. 

County Clerks. — Elijah Catlin, 1858; 
Thomas W. Lyon, 1859; Scott W. Sayles, 
1860-61; Nathaniel \Miittemore, 1862-65; 
Harrison H. Wheeler, 1866-67; H. A. 
Braddock, 1868-75; William M. Kelley, 1876- 
83; Wiliam Gaffney, 1884-89; George Reilley, 
1890-93; Frank L. Westover, 1894-97; Lud- 
wig Daniels, 1 898-1 901 ; John G. Buchanan, 
1902-03; Warren D. Richardson, 1904-05. 

Registers of Deeds. — Thomas M. Bligh, 
1858-59; F. A. Martin, 1860-61 ; August Kai- 
ser, 1862-63; Bernard Wittauer, 1864-67; T. 
A. Delzell, 1868-71 ; H. M. Hemstreet, 1872- 
yy: A\'illiam G. Beard, 1878-79; William G. 
McMath. 1880-81 ; William G. Beard, 1882- 
83; John Savage, Jr., 1884-87; W. A. Petta- 
piece, 1888-91 ; Henry Fenton, 1892-93; Lewis 
Anders, 1894-97; John Boston, 1898-99; 
George E. Wedthoff, 1900-05. 

Prosecuting Attorneys. — Chester H. Free- 
man. 1858-59; Theophilus C. Grier, 1860-61; 
Lutlier Beckwith, 1862-65; Isaac Marston, 
1866-69; C. H. Dennison, 1870-71 ; Theron F. 
Shepard, 1872-73; G. M. Wilson. 1874-77; 
Alfred P. Lyon. 1878-81 ; Henry Lindner, 
1882-83; John E. Simonson, 18S4-85; James 
A.VanKleeck. 1886-87; Curtis E. Pierce. 1888- 
91; Lee E. Joslyn, 1892-93; I. A. Gilbert, 



1894-97; Edward E. Anneke, 1898-1903; 
Erakie J. Orr, 1904-05. 

The county ot'iicers for 1905 are as follows : 
Circuit judge, Theodore F. Shepard; judge of 
probate, Griffith H. Francis; sheriff, John 
Hartley; county clerk, Warren D. Richardson; 
cnunty treasurer, Alexander Zagelmeyer; reg- 
ister of deeds, George E. Wedthoff; prosecut- 
ing attorney, Brakie J. Orr; circuit court com- 
missioners, — Wilkie A. Collins and George Roy 
Fox ; coroners, — Fred C. Van Tuyl and Fred 
Lah'rance; county school commissioner, John B. 
Laing; county surveyor, G. Edwin Turner; 
county agent, William Grandy ; county road 
commissioners, — Fred A. Kaiser, Hugh Camp- 
bell, George L. Frank, William Houser. Frank 
Kusmierz and Gustav Hine; county poor su- 
pureintendents. — Charles Anderson, August 
Aleisel and William Maxson; drain commis- 
sioner, John G. Weggel. 

The Bay County Board of Supervisors for 
1904 was constituted as follows : 

Names. Tozi.'nshil>s and Wards. 

Stewart M. Powrie Bangor 

William Peoples Beaver 

John J. DeYoung Frankenlust 

Henry B. Lints Eraser 

William H. Reid Garfield 

Ezra Truax Gibson 

Birdsey Knight Hampton 

Peter Bressette Kawkawlin 

C. A. Howell Merritt 

Henry ^loeller Monitor 

John Anderson Monnt Forest 

George Hartingh Pinconning 

William Wagner Portsmonth 

Linus W. Oviatt Williams 

Bay City. 

John C. Bacon First Ward 

Lorenz Weber Second Ward 

Daniel M. Pierce Third Ward 

Franklin M. Olmstead Fourth Ward 

John Combs Fifth Ward 

Frank Hewitt Si.xth Ward 

Charles Schuessler Seventh Ward 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



121 



Anthony Wyrj'bske Eighth Ward 

Louis C. Garrison Ninth Ward 

Warren Curley Tenth Ward 

Henry Fehrenbach Eleventh Ward 

Frank T. Woodworth Mayor, Bay City 

Thomas W. Moore Comptroller, Bay City 

Brakie J. Orr City Attorney, Bay City 

West Bay City. 
Patrick Lourim First Ward 



J. H. Little Second Ward 

Frank H. Davis Third Ward 

Joseph E. Logan Fourth Ward 

August Jonas Fifth Ward 

S. R. Birchard Sixth Ward 

George M. Staudacher Comptroller, West Bay City 

William E. Magill Treasurer, West Bay City 

John M. Roy City Clerk, West Bay City 

John R. Cotter President, EssexviUe 

Edward Jennings President, Pinconning 



CHAPTER VI. 



CREATION AND GROWTH OF THE CITIES. TOWNSHIPS AND VILLAGES 

OF THE COUNTY 

Incorporation and Growth of the Village of Bay City^ the Successor of Lower 
Saginaw and ' Portsmouth Village — Chartered as a City — Roster of City Of- 
ficials — History of the Villages of Banks, Salzburg and Wenona and of 
Their Successor, West Bay City — Roster of Village and City Officials — The 
Townships of the County with Historical, Geographical and Census Data — 
The Villages of Essexville, Kawkawlin, Pinconning, Auburn and "Iceburg, 
U. S. A." 



Having brought the available data of Bay 
County down to the present day, we must turn 
back to the pages of time, and review the in- 
ward development of the units comprising the 
county, — the townships, with their thriving 
little villages, and, above all, the twin cities, 
which until this year of grace, 1905, have been 
compelled by circumstances to live together in 
constant social intercourse, in joint business 
pursuits and transactions, one community of 
interests save that of political unity. It is well 
in this first year of the united cities, in the year 
which will ever be commemorated and blessed 
as the birth-year of Greater Bay City, to review 
the creation, growth and organization of the 
little hamlets and frontier cities, which first 
formed the nucleus of the metropolis of North- 
ern Michigan. 

BAY city. 

The new life and energy and impetus given 
the river bottom settlements by the securing of 



the new county seat, in 1858, brought with it 
rosy visions of a mighty city, and the residents 
of Bay City at once planned to incorporate their 
village. The disappointed ones from Saginaw 
and Midland counties had their hammers out 
for Bay, and the anvil chorus was working 
overtime. But at the winter session of the 
Legislature, in 1859, Bay City was duly incor- 
porated. In the 46 years since that incorpora- 
tion the growth and development of that ambi- 
tious little village, on the border of an almost 
unknown wilderness in 1859, have surpassed 
the fondest hopes and expectations of its incor- 
porators. Years after, when the new City Hall 
with its imposing high tower was being con- 
structed, that veteran pioneer, Judg'e Sydney 
S. Campbell was taken to its cupola, and shown 
the beautiful panorama of the now beautiful 
city. The sight seemed to bewilder the sage 
pioneer. All he could say was : "Wonderful, 
wonderful," and "Who would have thought it 1" 
When the village of Bay City was incor- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



123 



porated, it had probably 700 inhabitants. It 
was still a crude, booming, frontier lumber 
manufacturing settlement. The river front for 
some miles on the east shore was cleared of 
timber, the clearing extending back as far as 
Washington avenue. Most of the homes of the 
settlers stood in these clearings, with stumps 
all about, and the village could lay no claim 
to pastoral beauty. The place had ample school 
accommodations for the rising generation, 
Judge Birney, Dr. Fitzhugh, James Eraser and 
Judge Miller of the neighboring town of Ports- 
mouth doing much for the settlers' education. 
The spiritual welfare of the pioneers was not 
neglected, and even the Indians had their own 
place of worship at this time on the banks of 
the Kawkawlin. The lumber industry fur- 
nished employment to the community, and 
offered ever greater opportunities for the 
owners and operators of sawmills. The seem- 
ingly inexhaustible supply of pine and other 
tiinber, and the constantly increasing demand 
for manufactured lumber brought new saw- 
mills at ever shortening intervals. The fishing 
industry also furnished employment to many 
hardy fishermen, and fish formed one of the 
most important exports of the village. So busy 
were the pioneers with the cutting down and 
sawing of the pine trees, and the catching of 
the finny tribes in Saginaw bay and river, that 
farming was attempted only in isolated cases, 
and the fertile soil had to wait for future gen- 
erations to reap the bounteous harvests which 
bless this valley, season after season. There 
was easy and ready money in lumber, and pine 
could be secured for a song. It was only after 
the pine trees had fallen under the a.xes of the 
picturesque backwoodsmen, and been devoured 
by the insatiable maw of many saws, that the 
virgin soil received the attention it merited. 
But for all that the village was highly prosper- 



ous. Wages were high, and living commodi- 
ties were still simple and reasonable. 

The boundaries of the new village, as it 
was incorporated, included all of the original 
plat of Bay City, and the territory originally 
in Portsmouth, extending from Columbus ave- 
nue to Lafayette avenue, which formed the 
section line. This was an error, for the lines 
of Portsmouth were then drawn along 24th 
street, and this block was for a time without 
both the municipal lines. At a later session of 
the Legislature this error was corrected by 
making the southern line of the village of Bay 
City extend to 24th street. 

The first village election was held in the 
Birney Hall on Water street. May 2, 1859. 
Calvin C. C. Chilson and Dr. Louis Fuchsius 
were judges at the polls, and Albert Wedhoff 
was clerk. There were cast at this election 155 
votes, of which Curtis Munger, merchant, re- 
ceived 92 votes for the office of president, 
against 63 cast for George Lord and Jonathan 
S. Barclay. Charles Atwood was elected re- 
corder, John F. Cottrell was elected treasurer, 
while the trustees chosen were Albert Miller, 
James J. McCormick, Henry W. Jennison, 
Israel Catlin, Henry M. Bradley and Harmon 
A. Chamberlin. 

The first meeting of the trustees was held 
in a room over the store of Jennison Brothers, 
located on what is now Water street and Fifth 
avenue, and wdiere, oddly enough, 46 years 
later we find the Jennison hardware store, with 
its great business managed by the descendants 
of those early pioneers. The trustees did little 
more than organize on May 5, 1859. but at 
another meeting, held May 2 2, 1859, they com- 
pleted the government of the village by appoint- 
ing John A. Weed, village marshal ; Henry M. 
Bradley, street commissioner, while the asses- 
sors named were Algernon S. Munger and 



124 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



William Daglish. Evidently things politic 
were managed somewhat differently during 
those early years, than they are in this year 
of grace, 1905. The gentlemen named for 
assessors not only did not seek the honor, but 
felt that their private affairs did not allow them 
to do justice to the public duties. Consequently 
the village trustees appointed in their stead A. 
G. Sinclair and Charles D. Fisher. But Mr. 
Sinclair was equally scrupulous in the matter, 
and Col. Henry Raymond was chosen on June 
6, 1859. 

' One of the first official acts of the trustees 
'was the ordering of board walks on Washing- 
ton avenue from First to Tenth streets, and the 
opening of Jefferson street and Madison ave- 
nue, north of Center avenue. On June 3, 
1859, Hon. James Birney was appointed attor- 
ney for the village at a salary of $75 per year! 
On June 27, 1859, a general tax for village 
purposes of $1,047 was certified to by the asses- 
sors, and they also levied a highway tax of 
one-half of one per cent. The efficient fire de- 
partment of this community had its inception 
on December 19, 1859, when Israel Catlin, 
Henry M. Bradley and Harmon A. Chamber- 
lin were appointed a committee on fire protec- 
tion : on January 4, i860, they were authorized 
to rent a sufficient amount of leather hose for 
use until spring, and they also procured a tri- 
angle for the hose house. 

The first year of the village was rich with 
promise of future greatness and development. 
The government census showed a population 
of 810 in Bay City, and 3,164 in Bay County. 
Saginaw County, even after losing Bay two 
years previous, had 12,693 people. This first 
year of Bay City as an incorporated community 
was marked by a large increase in population, 
and new impetus in the financial and social 
conditions. The first salt-well was sunk in 



i860, the lumber industry assumed larger pro- 
portions, and a few enterprising farmers pro- 
ceeded to carve farms out of the wilderness of 
swamp and pine stumpage. The pioneers felt 
the need of better connection with the outside 
world, and about 1 1 miles of the plank road 
toward Tuscola County had been built before 
snow came that fall, and naturally the earliest 
farms were situated largely on this important 
highway. It has ever since been known as the 
Tuscola road. It was for. years a toll road, and 
toll houses were doing business there during 
the first drive the writer took over its well- 
worn surface in 18S2. 

A roster of the village ofBcers reads as fol- 
lows: 1861 : W. L. Fay, president; Sydney S. 
Campbell, recorder; B. Whittauer, treasurer. 
1862: James Watson, president; J. L. Mon- 
roe, recorder; August Kaiser, treasurer. 1863: 
Curtis Munger, president; Nathaniel Whitte- 
more, recorder; C. Scheurman, treasurer. 
1864: Curtis Munger, president; Nathaniel 
Whittemore, recorder; C. Scheurman, treas- 
urer. 1865: Jule B. Hart, president; P. S. 
Hiesordt, recorder; Ernst Frank, treasurer. 

In January, 1865, the village showed a 
population of 3,359, and the Legislature was 
asked to give the community a city charter, 
which was granted. 

On the first Monday in April, 1865, the 
city of Bay City perfected its organization, by 
electing a full set of city officials, including 
aldermen for the three wards into which the 
ambitious settlement had been divided. The 
pioneers of that city of a little more than three 
thousand souls, hardly foresaw that in the 
course of events, just 40 years later, at the 
election on the first Monday in April, 1905, 
this city of Bay City would be united in wed- 
lock to the equally healthy and beautiful city 
across the river, and that the familv thus united 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



12 = 



would bring over 41,000 people within the 
boundaries of the new and greater city of Bay 
City. 

At the time Bay City was chartered, the 
site of future West Bay City was a beautiful 
grove of oaks and stately pines. The little 
elevation extending hack from the river was a 
favorite camping ground of the wandering In- 
dians, and their bark and hide wigwams gave 
the western landscape a pretty and picturesque 
setting, as viewed from Bay City. But there 
was little evidence of the rapid development in 
store for that side of the river in the years 
to come. There was a settlement near the 
mouth of the river, which in 1865 became 
Banks, and an equally ambitious burg opposite 
Portsmouth fostered by Dr. Daniel Hughes 
Fitzhugh, which was called Salzburg by its 
German pioneers, a name which is still all its 
own. Since the years of agitation about unit- 
ing all these scattered and yet connected little 
communities under one head, the people hav§ 
often expressed wonder why they were not all 
included in the charter provisions of Bay City 
as originally drawn by the Legislature in 1865. 
But in view of the foregoing it will be appar- 
ent, that there was really nothing but virgin 
forest and a few roving Indians to take in at 
that time on the west bank of the river. In 
1864, H. W. Sage began the erection of his 
"Big Mill" directly across from the heart of 
Bay City, and workingmen were hurrying to 
the new lumber El Dorado, but it was not until 
May, 1866, that the village of Winona was in- 
corporated. Hence Bay City did not take in 
anything originally, except the central portion 
of what is now included in the corporate city 
limits. 

The first election of city offices in Bay City 
resulted as follows : Hon. Nathan B. Brad- 
ley, mayor; William T. Kennedy, recorder; 
Ernst Frank, treasurer. In this year of grace. 



1905, Hon. Nathan B. Bradley is still with us, 
the same public-spirited, enterprising, beloved 
and esteemed citizen, that he was just 40 years 
ago ! It is a rare anniversary in the life of a 
comnuinity and in the career of a public offi- 
cial. And during all those 40 years our "First 
Mayor" has been indefatigable in the work of 
building up these communities, and in blessing 
its inhaljitants. He is to-day the "Grand Old 
Man" of our city's surviving pioneers, just as 
Hon. James G. Birney w'as the "Grand Old 
Man" of the pioneer days of our county. Nor 
is Mr. Bradley alone in celebrating this anni- 
versary, for the first city treasurer of Bay City, 
Ernst Frank, is still actively engaged in his 
business pursuits, occupying a suite of offices 
in the Crapo Block, from whose lofty pinnacle 
can be gained a fine view of the new greater 
city, so far ahead of anything the first officials 
of our city perceived even in their fondest 
dreams. Both of these veteran officials and 
sterling citizens held many offices of trust and 
responsibility in the years following the incor- 
poration of our city, and contributed much to 
the de\-elopment of the city and county. 

The first Board of Aldermen was as fol- 
lows : First ^\'ard : George W. Hotchkiss and 
Jerome B. Sweet ; Second Ward : Alexander 
M. Johnson and Jeffrie R. Thomas; Third 
Ward ; James Watson and Herschel H. Hatch. 
Hon. Herschel H. Hatch is in 1905 a resident 
of Detroit, and one of Michigan's most distin- 
guished lawyers. He, too, filled many places 
of trust and responsibility in this city, county, 
district and State, and lives to enjoy the 40th 
anniversary of the birthday of this city, and of 
his entry upon its public duties. On April 11, 
1865, these councilmen fixed the bond of the 
treasurer at $3,000, and appointed Thomas 
Carney, Sr., street commissioner; Theophilus 
C. Grier, city attorney ; C. Feige, city marshal : 
and Andrew Huggins. city surveyor. 



126 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



One of the first requirements of this bust- 
ling Httle "sawdust" town was more ample fire 
protection, and at a special election held the 
first Monday in September, 1865, the people 
voted in favor of purchasing a steam fire- 
engine. Accordingly on September 30th the 
aldermen ordered the sum of $4,997.47 spread 
on the city tax-rolls for the ensuing year, and 
by resolution, adopted November 18, 1865, the 
new "Silsby" fire-engine was duly accepted. 
The valuation of the city's property during the 
first year of its existence was placed at 
$633,000. 

Hon. Nathan B. Bradley came to Bay City 
in 1858, engaging in the lumber business, in 
which he has ever since been more or less in- 
terested to this day. He was one of the first 
lumber manufacturers to add the making of 
salt to his sawmill plant, using the refuse as 
fuel for the salt plant. In 1865, with that fore- 
sight which has ever made him the foremost 
citizen in all public enterprises in Bay City, 
he interested others with himself and applied 
for and secured a cliarter for building a street 
railway in the new lumber town ! Verily things 
were moving fast! Only seven years before, 
the supervisor from Portsmouth had to come 
down in a canoe, because the Indian trail and 
river road were both difficult and uncertain as a 
means of reaching the heart of the settlement, 
and now these settlers already have metropoli- 
tan ideas and want an up-to-date street car serv- 
ice! It is also to be noted in passing, that those 
sturdy pioneers did not enter any protest 
against giving away valuable franchises, about 
bartering away the people's rights without ade- 
quate return, such as have become the fashion 
of these latter days. In 1865 the residents of 
this booming lumber town \\'elcomed the pros- 
pect of rapid and easy transportation, such as 
the horse cars furnished all over the country 
at that time. Mr. Bradlev was the secretary- 



treasurer and one of the managing directors 
for many years of the local street railway sys- 
tem. He served this growing community with 
eminent distinction in the State Senate, 1866- 
67, and in 1872 was elected to the 43rd Con- 
gress. He served on the committee of public 
lands, doing much to develop the interior of 
?ilichigan, which then contained much of the 
country's public lands. He also secured large 
appropriations for dredging the Saginaw River 
and the harbors of his district, making them 
navigable for lake boats of the deepest draught, 
both of which measures were of vital import- 
ance to the commercial development of this 
city and county. The first mayor of Bay City 
stood like a stone-wall in defense of the elec- 
toral bill in the 44th Congress, believing it the 
only peaceful solution of the all important 
question. During all the 40 years since Mr. 
Bradley first guided the public affairs of the 
growing city, he has been conspicuous in every 
discussion of important public questions. He 
has presided at many city, county and district 
conventions, and there has not been an import- 
ant political campaign during that long period 
that has not found him fighting in the very van 
for the principles he holds dear. Yet the love 
and esteem in which he is held by the entire 
community attest the fact, that he has never 
stooped to the guerrilla tactics, so common in 
partisan warfare during the heat of political 
campaigns. He has set the good example of 
placing his citizenship first ! Partisan consider- 
ations come thereafter. Hence while his neigh- 
bors might dift'er with him on questions of 
national economy and the particular manner 
of conducting our national affairs, yet they 
were, after all, his fellow-citizens, whom he 
knew to be as honest, as earnest and as sincere 
as he was himself. 

The writer has no apology to offer for this 
transgression upon the tide of events in the 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



127 



city and county. For the first mayor of Bay 
City is to-day such a bright and Hving example 
of all that is noble, progressive, charitable, 
forceful and worthy of emulation by coming 
generations, that the pause in the narration of 
municipal events is really but an indicator of 
one of the leading factors in their consumma- 
tion. It is usually easy enough to carry on a 
city government that has been well organized 
and properly started, and hence more import- 
ance attaches to the charter organization than 
to subsequent administrations, that had the 
benefit of the experience of the earlier officials. 
The esteem in which the first officials of Bay 
City were held, and the ability with which they 
served their young constituency, is best attested 
by the many honors subsequently conferred on 
Mayor Nathan B. Bradley and on City Treas- 
urer Ernst Frank, who served continuously 
until April, 1869, and again in later years, and 
on Recorder W. T. Kenned}-, who served until 
April, 1867. 

The roster of city officials from that day 
to this includes many prominent names in the 
annals of the city, men who stood high in the 
business world, and others who stood equally 
high in their chosen professions. Here is the 
list of the successors of the first officials : 

Mayors. — ^James Watson, 1866-67; W. L. 
Fay, 1868; James J. McCormick, 1869; Alger- 
non S. Munger, 1870; G. H. Van Etten, 1871 ; 
Appleton Stevens, 1872-75; Archibald Mc- 
Donell, 1876-77; George Lord, 1878; John H. 
Wilkins, 1879-82; Hon. T. A. E. Weadock, 
1883-84: George H. Shearer, 1885-87; Hon. 
Hamilton :\I. Wright, 1888-89; Hon. George 
D. Jackson. 1890-95; Hon. Hamilton M. 
Wright, 1895-97; Alexander McEwan, 1897- 
1901 ; Dr. William Cunningham, 1902-03; 
Frank T. Woodworth, 1904-05. 

Recorders. — Nathaniel Whittemore, 1868- 
70; I. G. Warden, 1871-77; T. A. Delzell, 



1878-85; James B. Barber, 1886-92; Octavius 
A. Marsac, 1892- 1905. 

Treasurers. — I. G. Warden, 1869; August 
Kaiser, 1870; Lucien S. Coman, 1871-74; C. 
S. Braddock, 1875-76; Charles Supe, 1877; E. 
Wood, 1878; Jacob Knoblauch, 1879-80; Jo- 
seph Cusson, 1881-82; Charles Babe, 1883-85; 
William G. Beard, 1886-87; Albert Jeffrey, 
1888-91 ; Ernst Frank, 1891-95 ; Ludwig Dan- 
iels, 1895-99; H. A. Gustin, 1 899-1903; Ed- 
ward E. Corliss, 1903-05. 

Comptrollers. — R. McKinney, 1869; 
George Lord, 1870-74; Patrick J. Perrott, 
1875-76; W. H. Fennell, 1877-78; C. F. Bra- 
man, 1879-89; Capt. William Keith, 1889-97; 
G. F. Ambrose, 1897-1901 ; Thomas W. 
Moore, 1901-05. 

The present city ofificials are as follows : 
Mayor, Frank T. Woodworth ; recorder, Oc- 
tavius A. Marsac; treasurer, Edward E. Cor- 
liss; comptroller, Thomas W. Moore; city at- 
torney, Brakie J. Orr; city engineer, Capt. 
George Turner; chief of the fire department, 
Thomas K. Harding; chief of police, N. N. 
Murphy; police justice, William M. Kelley; 
street commissioner, Henry Fox; pound mas- 
ters, — John Rowell, Sr., and Michael Dom- 
browski ; librarian, Capt. Aaron J. Cooke ; 
superintendent of water-works, E. L. Dunbar ; 
superintendent of schools, Prof. John A. 
Stewart. 

WEST BAY CITY. 

Banks. — In 185 1, Joseph Trombley, the 
far-famed Indian trader and pioneer, had 25 
acres of his large land holdings on the west 
bank of the river, platted into village lots, 
which Thomas Whitney, of Bangor, Maine, 
who erected the first sawmill in that locality, 
named in honor of his birthplace, Bangor. In 
1865 "Uncle Sam" established a post office in 
this little settlement, and finding another post 



128 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



office with the same name in Michigan, had it 
changed to Banks, which 40 years later still 
marks this enterprising portion of Greater Bay 
City. The village of Banks in 1865 was sit- 
uated on section 16, in the township of Bangor, 
and had 350 inhabitants. 

The village of Banks was incorporated by 
act of the Legislature, April 15, 1871, and this 
act was amended ?\Iarch 31, 1875, by extending 
the boundaries, which then included "all of 
Sections 15 and 16 lying north and west of 
Saginaw River, and the east half of the south- 
west quarter of Section 17, and all of said lands 
being in town 14 north range 5 east are 
made and constituted a village corporate by the 
name and title of the village of Banks." 

The first village president in 1871 was 
Robert Leng, a prominent salt manufacturer. 
Under the new charter, the recorder, treasurer, 
and assessor were to be elected, instead of ap- 
pointed, and this first election proved unusually 
interesting. Fred W. Bradfield, now manager 
of the Bay City Hardware Company, and still 
a resident within the old corporate limits of 
Banks, was elected president without opposi- 
tion. Since most of the inhabitants were of 
French extraction, the officials elected reflected 
the predominant nationality. John B. Poirier 
won out for recorder with 40 votes to spare, 
Robert Leng was chosen assessor, with 53 
majority, while Bernard Lourim, treasurer, 
had no opposition. The trustees were Joseph 
Trombley, John Brown and Peter Smith. The 
village management was very public-spirited, 
especially in the matter of public schools, the 
improvement of roadways, and the securing of 
new industries. In 1877, by act of the Legisla- 
ture, Banks became a part of West Bay City. 



Salzburg. — In 1862 Dr. Daniel Hughes 
Fitzhugh platted a strip of land fronting on 



the west bank of the river, and extending from 
the Lafayette avenue bridge north to the sec- 
tion line. The Laderach and other German 
families had settled here in 1861, and as the 
salt excitement ran high in the valley in those 
years, they named the embryo village Salzburg, 
after the ancient town of Salzburg in Austria. 
The village was never incorporated, yet 
fought vigorously against consolidation, to- 
gether with its northern neighbor, W'enona 
village, in 1875, \vhen the central division 
sought to absorb the wings. In 1868 the post 
office was established in the flourishing village, 
and as Frankenlust and Monitor townships be- 
came settled, and the population rapidly in- 
creased, this office did a thriving business. In 
1877, Salzburg became a part and parcel of 
West Bay City, but the southern suburb of the 
West Side will ever be known by the appropri- 
ate name accorded the hamlet by the early 
pioneers. 



Wenona. — The beautiful grove of oaks 
and pines extending along the little sand-ridge 
above the river bank and river bottom, directly 
opposite Portsmouth and Bay City, was a nat- 
ural park, as beautiful and pleasing to the eye 
as any park ever artistically laid out by the 
hand of man. It was the favorite camping 
eround of the Indians, and Indian trails led to 
this picturesque park from all directions. It 
was picked out by Henry W. Sage, capitalist 
and lumberman of Ithaca, New York, during- 
his first memorable visit here in 1847, as a very 
likely location for a booming lumber town. 
Yet the years rolled by and, while the less de- 
sirable east side of the river grew and pros- 
pered, "Jolly Jack" Hays in his lone cabin, the 
man who operated the only ferry across the 
river for years, and the Indians, who at all 
seasons of the year returned to their favorite 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



129 



camping- ground, were the only people who en- 
joyed the many natural advantages offered b}' 
this site. The trail through the woods to Mid- 
land, 20 miles to the west, began here. On the 
edge of the grove stood the little cottage of 
George King, the second settler, and near by 
was the little school house, wdiere the children 
of Bangor township were taught, and wdiich 
also was the town hall of the few scattered set- 
tlers. 

In 1862 Henry W. Sage proceeded to carry 
out the plans for building a sawmill on this 
promising site, which appeared to have waited 
all these 16 years for the return of the master 
mind that had so quickly grasped the advan- 
tages which appealed to later arrivals appar- 
ently in vain. After long and almost futile 
negotiations for the desired site, then owned by 
Dr. Daniel Hughes Fitzhugh and ]\Irs. Eliza- 
beth P. Birney, who naturally desired to drive 
a sharp bargain, the late James Eraser suc- 
ceeded in harmonizing the differences, and the 
great lumber firm of Sage, McGraw & Com- 
pany transferred their activities from Lake 
Simcoe, in Canada, to the site of future We- 
nona, in 1863. They at once proceeded to 
erect the largest sawmill in the world, and the 
magnitude of the entrprise drew the attention, 
not only of this country, but also of Europe, 
to the shady groves of Wenona. 

The little settlement gathering about the 
mammoth mill grew with leaps and bounds. 
The company at once laid out a village, selling 
the lots, 200 by 50 feet in dimensions, for $200 
each, and named it Lake City, but w-hen they 
applied for a post office, it was found that an- 
other village in Michigan had prior claims on 
the name. The wives of Messrs. Sage and 
McGraw then decided to call it Wenona, after 
the lamented mother of Hiawatha, in the book 
of Indian legends and traditions of that name. 



written by Longfellow, and then at the height 
of its popularity. 

In May, 1866, the village of Wenona was 
incorporated by the Board of Supervisors, 
which described the village as lying in section 
20, township 14 north, range 5 east. The first 
election was ordered held on June i, 1866, at 
the school house in Bangor township, and C. F. 
Corbin, J. B. Ostrander and W. D. Chambers 
were named as election inspectors. The fol- 
lowing village officials were elected : President, 
Maj. Xewcomb Clark; trustees, — John G. 
Emery, William D. Chambers, Martin W. 
Brock, Lafayette Roundsville and Marcellus 
Faxon; clerk, Harrison H. Wheeler; treasurer, 
David G. Arnold; marshal, Ainsworth T. Rus- 
sell ; pound master, J. B. Ostrander ; assessors, 
— John G. Sweeney and James A. McKnight; 
street commissioners, — Wilson O. Craft, Hi- 
ram C. Allard and Ainsworth T. Russell ; fire 
wardens, — William Swart, Ainsworth T. Rus- 
sell and John H. Burt. 

In February, 1867, the Legislature granted 
a charter to Wennna, and on April 2, 1867, the 
charter election was held, resulting as follows : 
President, David G. Arnold; recorder, Maj. 
Newcomb Clark ; treasurer, George A. Allen ; 
assessor, James A. McKnight; trustees, — J. G. 
Emery, M. \\'. Brock, Carlos E. Root, Wilson 
O. Craft, Lafayette Roundsville and Harrison 
H. Wheeler. The charter was drawn by Maj. 
Xewcomb Clark, the first president of Wenona, 
and speaker of the House of Representatives, 
33rd General Assembly of Michigan. He was 
educated at Oxford Academy, served with dis- 
tinction through the Civil War, with the 14th 
Regiment, Michigan Infantry, and later with 
the 102nd Regiment, U. S. (Colored) Infan- 
try, and came to Wenona in 1865. For many 
years he held offices of trust in the rising com- 
munity, and contributed much to the Ixisiness 



130 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



development of the village and later, of the city. 
Treasurer Allen, Assessor McKnight and Trus- 
tee Roundsville are still residing here, having 
watched through the varying fortunes of 40 
years the gradual growth and increasing im- 
portance of the place that was infinite enough 
when it first assumed a place on the map of the 
county and State. They will likely live to see 
the cities united in April, 1905, and assume the 
place in our nation's constellation of great 
cities, to v^'hich they are entitled. 

It was Major Clark who drew up the special 
charter, and carried it to Lansing for the Board 
of Trustees. He placed it in the hands of Hon. 
Nathan B. Bradley, then State Senator, and it 
was made effective in short order. While such 
men as Mr. Bradley served this constituency 
at Lansing, there was no "railroading" of home 
rule measures. The people through their ac- 
credited representatives had merely to express 
their wishes, and the representatives saw to it 
that they were gratified without alteration of 
any kind. 

The roster of village officials contains the 
names of some of the most enterprising pio- 
neers, and the few survivors are among the 
most prominent and prosperous of our citizens, 
as the following roll of those who succeeded 
•the first officials, will show : Village presidents, 
— Harrison H. Wheeler, 1867; David G. Ar- 
nold, 1869 and 1874; E. T. Carrington, 1870; 
C. F. Corbin, 1871 ; Lafayette Roundsville, 
1872; S. A. Plummer, 1873; James A. Mc- 
Knight, 1875; George Washington, 1876. 
Village recorders, — C. P. Black, 1868; Maj. 
Newcomb Clark, 1869; O. J. Root, 1870; E. 
C. Haviland, 1871; Maj. Newcomb Clark, 
1872; T. P. Hawkins, 1873; C. F. Corbin, 
1874; A. S. Nichols. 1875; E. S. Van Liew, 
1876. Village trustees. — J. G. Emery, 1868; 
Wilson O. Craft, 1S68-69; J. B. Ostrander, 
1868; W. D. Chambers, 1868; Lafayette 



Roundsville, 1868-69; Martin W. Brock, 1868- 
70; C. W. Rounds, 1869; W. F. Hicks, 1869 
and 1871; C. P. Black, 1869 and 1876; S. A. 
Plummer, 1870-72; George A. Allen, 1870 
and 1872; C. F. Corbin, 1870; David G. Ar- 
nold, 1870 and 1876; James A. McKnight, 
1870, 1873 and 1876; A. Agans, 1871; R. 
Stringer, 1871 ; W. M. Green, 1871-73; O. J. 
Root, 1871 ; P. Irwin, 1872-73; William 
Moots, 1872-73; George Kiesel, 1873; George 
G. Van Alstine, 1873-74; George Harmon, 
1873; E. T. Carrington, 1874-75; A. S. 
Nichols, 1874; W. E. Lewis, 1874-75; Alex. 
Laroche, 1874-75; T. P. Hawkins, 1874-75; 
Perry Phelps, 1875-76; R. H. Chase, 1875; 
John G. Kiesel, 1876; Benjamin Pierce, 1876. 

Wenona had high ambitions in 1868, when 
it secured the Michigan Central Railroad line 
to Jackson, and it is pertinent in this consolida- 
tion year of 1905, to know that on March 2, 
1867, at a trustee meeting to grant the railroad 
the right of way through Wenona, one of the 
enthusiastic citizens announced that Wenona 
was disposed to be magnanimous to Bay City 
folks, who should be allowed to take the cars 
over there for the outside world, and that if 
Bay City applied in good form for annexation 
to Wenona, the application would be granted! 

Nor was this assumption merely a play of 
words, for in 1877 Wenona reached out and 
annexed to itself it's not too willing neighbors, 
— the village of Banks on the north, and the 
village of Salzburg on the south, — and all 
three little burgs disappeared from the map, 
while by act of the Legislature there sprang up 
in their place the promising city of West Bay 
City. The residents of Wenona said this con- 
solidation was a forcible illustration of the oft- 
repeated maxim : "In union there is strength !" 
The Legislative act was called "An Act to con- 
solidate Wenona, Banks and Salzburg, to be 
known as the city of West Bay City," and the 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



131 



boundaries included so much of the township 
of Bangor as formerly belonged to \\'enona 
and Banks, and the plat of Salzburg included 
within the described limits. 

The little city was divided into three wards, 
and the charter election was held on the first 
Monday in ilay, 1877. The vote in the First 
Ward was taken in the old Banks town hall, 
P. Lourim, Robert Leng, Alex. B. Moore, 
Thomas B. Raymond and Ephraim J. Kelton 
being the inspectors. The Second Ward held 
its election in the council rooms, David G. 
Arnold, T. P. Hawkins, James A. McKnight, 
Spencer O. Fisher and George G. Van Alstine 
being the inspectors. The Third Ward vote 
was taken at Davis' Hotel, Frank Fitzhugh, J. 
W. Babcock, Bartholomew Staudacher, Aaron 
Wellman and Robert Elliott being the inspec- 
tors. 

The first ofificials of West Bay City were as 
follows : Mayor, David G. Arnold ; recorder, 
E. S. Van Liew ; treasurer, W. M. Green ; 
aldermen : E. J. Kelton, C. E. Root, William 
Davis, William J. Martin, W. I. Tozer and 
Michael Hufnagel. The mayor was an old and 
respected citizen of the rising community, and 
together with the Board of Aldermen did much 
in the ne.xt year to secure better fire protection, 
better roads and other local improvements. The 
salaries were fi.xed as follows : Recorder, $400 ; 
comptroller, $800; city attorney, $200; mar- 
shal, $300; harbor master, $100; while the 
mayor and aldermen received the munificent 
sum of 50 cents per session ! This did not deter 
many good men from serving the city in an 
official capacity, as is shown by the following 
roster of city officials, until the consolidation 
of the East and West sides in 1905. 

Mayors. — David G. Arnold, 1877; George 
Washington, 1878; William I. Tozer, 1879- 
80; William E. iNIagill, 1881-82; Hon. Spencer 
O. Fisher, 1883-85; S. A. Plummer, 1886-87; 



William J. Martin, 1888-91 ; Rousseau O. 
Crump, 1892-1895; Peter Lind, i896-i9Ti; 
John Walsh, 1902-03; C. J. Barnett, 1904-05. 

Recorders. — E. S. Van Liew, 1877-81; 
Henry C. Thompson, 1882-83; William H. 
Phillips, 1883-87; William Stewart, 1888-89; 
William H. Phillips, 1890-91 ; John C. Angell, 
1892-93; George L. Lusk, 1894-99; Fred G. 
Sweeney, 1 900-1 901 ; John M. Roy, 1902- 
1905. 

Comptrollers.— WilVmm E. Magill, 1885- 
86; Alexander Zagelmeyer, 1887-88; James A. 
McKnight, 1889-90; F. C. Thompson, 1891; 
Charles Glaser, 1892; James Scott and Charles 
Glaser, 1893; Charles Glaser, 1894; Henry S. 
Lewis, 1895-96; F. W. Ingersoll, 1897; Frank 
G. Walton, 1898-1900; John Boston, 1901-03; 
George M. Staudacher, 1904-05. 

Treasurers. — ^W. M. Green, 1877-81 ; An- 
drew Weir, 1882-83; James A. McKnight, 
1S84; H. W. Weber, 1885-86; D. McLaugh- 
lin. 1887-88; Theo. E. Bissel, 1889-90; W. M. 
Green, 1891-92; R. C. Tasker, 1893-96; Au- 
gust J. Bothe, 1897-1900; C. M. Larue, 1901- 
02; William E. Magill, 1903-1905. 

THE TOWNSHIPS OF THE COUNTY. 

B.\NGOR. — On petition of 18 freeholders, 
led by John G. Kiesel, John Gies, Charles 
Nickel, Scott W. Sayles, Frederick Kiesler and 
]Mathew Miller, of Hampton township lying 
north and west of the Saginaw River, the 
Board of Supervisors on March 22, 1859, 
erected the township of Bangor, and on April 
7, 1873, the township held its first election. 
Scott W. Sayles. John Raymond and Frederick 
Kiesler were the inspectors, and Scott W. 
Sayles was chosen supervisor. When West 
Bay City was chartered in 1877. Bangor lost 
most of its territory, wealth and importance. 
In 1864, for instance, Bangor paid $6,457.40 in 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



county taxes, while for some years after losing 
the three villages the tax was less than $800, 
and the assessed valuation dropped from $259,- 
885 in 1866. to a little over $100,000, in 1880. 
Since the land comprising Bangor has been 
thickly settled, some of the most important coal 
mines have there been opened, and the township 
is again taking a prominent place iti the affairs 
of the county, despite its mutilation. The pop- 
ualtion in 1880 was but 271, while in 1894 it 
was 843. and in 1900, 1,195. Bangor town- 
ship is bounded by Monitor and Kawkawlin 
townships on the west, West Bay City on the 
south and west, the Saginaw River on the east 
and Saginaw Bay on the north. The township 
officials for 1905 are: Supervisor, Stewart J\I. 
Powrie; clerk, N. D. Zimmer; treasurer, 
Charles Lind ; highway commissioner, George 
Walker; School Board, — Nicholas Casper and 
Stephen Corbin ; justices of the peace, — Joseph 
Carrier and John Zentz. 



Be.wer. — In February, 1867, the Legisla- 
ture created the township of Beaver, by taking 
from Williams "Towns 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 
20 north, range 3 east." On the first Monday 
in April, 1867, the first election was held at the 
home of Levi Willard. 

The inspectors were Levi Willard, Josiah 
L. Wellington and Oscar H. Kellogg. Levi 
Willard was the first supervisor. The new 
township was bounded on the north by Fraser 
(now Garfield) township, on the east by Kaw- 
kawlin township, on the south by Williams 
township and on the west by the Midland 
County line. It lies 10 miles west and five 
miles north of Bay City. During its early 
years considerable lumbering was done in its 
vicinity and the pioneers had no trouble selling 
their hay and other products right at their 
doors. Later the Midland Branch of the Alich- 



igan Central Railroad was constructed five 
miles to the south, on an east and west line 
through Williams township, and an excellent 
road system provided excellent means of dis- 
posing of the products of their rich farms. As 
late as 1873 there were less than 50 families 
in the township, and the land brought from 
$2.50 to $5.00 per acre. In 1905 this same 
land, since improved, drained and cleared, 
brings from $75 to $125 per acre. Branches 
of the Kawkawlin River thread all portions 
of the township. The population in 1870 was 
161 ; in 1880, 350; in 1894, 1,236; and in 1900, 
1,539. The present township officials are: 
Supervisor, William Peoples ; clerk, John End- 
line; treasurer, Charles B. Craig; justice of 
the peace, Frank Nowak; highway commis- 
sioner, George Buchler. There are postoffices 
at Willard, Loehne and Duel villages. 



Frankenlust township is bounded on the 
south and west by Saginaw County, on the 
north Ijy Monitor township and on the east 
by the Saginaw River. When the Legislature 
in February, 1881, took the township of Koch- 
ville from Saginaw County, it gave to Bay 
County at once one of its richest and most in- 
teresting additions. Rev. Ferdinand Sievers, 
born in Lunenburg, Germany, May 18, 181 6, 
was left an orphan at the age of seven years. 
His uncle. Rev. Philip Sievers, educated the 
promising boy, who graduated from Goettin- 
gen LTniversity in 1838. After teaching school 
for three years, he studied theology at the 
universities of Berlin and Halle, taught for 
three years more to accumulate a little fund of 
his own, and in 1847 was ordained for the 
Lutheran ministry. Led by Rev. Mr. Sievers, 
a number of German families immigrated to 
the Saginaw Valley in 1848, and with com- 
mendable perseverance and foresight estab- 




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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



135 



lished the now prosperous township of Frank- 
enlust. In May, 1850, Rev. Air. Sievers mar- 
ried CaroHne Koch, daughter of Rev. Freder- 
ick Koch, who had left the comforts of home 
to follow her affianced to the wilds of Michi- 
gan. Eleven children blessed their home, crude 
enough during the early years. Seven survive, 
but like most of the descendants of these early 
pioneers of far-famed Frankenlust, they have 
scattered over the surrovmding townships and 
to other pastures new. The early history of 
Frankenlust is the story of the life-work of 
Rev. Mr. Sievers and his devoted colony. 
Their judgment in selecting that neighborhood 
has been verified by the passing years. 

Frankenlust is one of the richest townships, 
for its soil is fertile, its location higher than 
the east shore of the river, and by thrift and in- 
dustry these hardy pioneers and their descend- 
ants have made it a verital:)le garden spot in 
the State. Here it was that the infant beet 
sugar industry found experienced antl willing 
culturists, and the prosperous farmers of 
Frankenlust willingly invested in the German- 
American Sugar Factory built at their very 
doors on the cooperative plan, and which in 
1904 had a most profitable season's campaign. 
The discovery of coal added three mines to 
the industries of the township, and as a fine 
fire clay is found in these coal shafts, another 
industry of great possibilities is just beginning 
in the township, — the manufacture of building 
and paving brick. A busy little village has 
sprung up around the white spire of the Ger- 
man Lutheran Church at Amelith, while well- 
kept roads point the way to Bay City. 

German hospitality is proverbial, hence the 
cozy farms and inviting cross-road hostelries 
of Frankenlust township are the most popular 
outing places in the county. A drive over those 
well-kept roads, past thriving little settlements 
and well-kept farms, either during tiie heat of 



summer, or over the snow on a crisp day in 
winter, is one of the townspeople's delights. It 
usually produces an appetite for the good 
things to eat which always grace the tables of 
these hospitable people. The township has five 
school districts, and four churches, three of 
them German Lutheran, and the fourth, Ger- 
man Methodist. 

Upon the application of 75 freeholders, the 
Board of Supervisors of Saginaw County erec- 
ted Frankenlust township, then known as 
Kochville township, on October 12, 1855, in- 
cluding "Town 13 north, Range 4 east; sec- 
tions 6, 7, 18, 19 and the north half of Sec- 
tion 30, Town 13 north. Range 5 east ; and Sec- 
tions 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 
and 36, Town 14 north, Range 4 east." The 
first election was held April 7 1S56. at the home 
of Adam Goetz, in the little village of Koch- 
ville. G. Stengel, J. P. Weggel and J. S. He- 
belt were the inspectors, and the following offi- 
cers were elected : Supervisor, Luke \\^elling- 
ton ; clerk. John C. Schmidt; treasurer, An- 
dreas Goetz; school inspectors, — J. G. Helm- 
reich and Caspar Link; highway commission- 
ers. — William Butz, Heinrich Hipser and Paul 
Stephan ; justices of the peace — Luke Welling- 
ton and Louis Loeffler ; poor commissioners, — 
George Henger and Andreas Goetz. Fifty- 
nine votes were cast, and the action was prac- 
tically unanimous, the German settlers S3^mpa- 
thizing with the oppressed black race of the 
South. They had left their native land seek- 
ing the land of liberty, and they had found 
peace and personal freedom in the wilds of 
Michigan, and their hearts went out to the 
chattel slaves of other days. 

In 1851-52, John A. Leinberger carried 
"Uncle Sam's'' mail on foot l^etween Saginaw 
and Bay City. He would go up one day, and 
come back the next. One day he met the late 
James Fraser, Bay County's famous "man on 



136 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



horseback," in the woods, where both were 
following an Indian trail. Fraser asked Lein- 
berger why he did not get a horse to carry him 
and the bag those 16 miles, and on being told 
that he could not afford the luxury of a horse, 
at the exorbitant value of horses in these wilds, 
Fraser told him to go to Fraser's stable and 
take his pick, which was promptly done the 
following day. Meeting Fraser soon after on 
the same trail, Leinberger asked how much 
he owed for the horse. "Well, John," Fraser re- 
plied, "when you get able, you can pay me $50, 
and if you never get able, keep the horse any- 
how." That horse helped John Leinberger 
over many a rocky place in the road, and by 
dint of thrift and industry he soon owned one 
of the finest farms in Frankenlust. Since the 
Frankenlusters sold all their farm products in 
Bay City, they long desired to join the new 
county near Saginaw Bay, and in 1881 they 
kept John A. Leinberger at Lansing to lobby 
for the separation. Having brought about the 
union with Bay County, he was elected the 
first supervisor, and for years represented 
Frankenlust on that board. He had 10 chil- 
dren by his first wife, and was married again 
in 1883. 

The population of Frankenlust was 768 in 
1880; 1,266 in 1894, and 1,395 in 1900. 

The pioneers erected a log hut, 30 by 40 
feet, in the wilderness in 1850 for a house of 
worship, and a frame church, 38 by 70 feet, 
was built in 1870. The year 1905 will be 
made memorable in the township by the erec- 
tion of a large and handsome new brick and 
stone church, the material for which is now 
being gathered, and work will begin this spring. 
The opening of the coal mines has brought 
new life and activity to Frankenlust, but it will 
reciuire some time for the staid, quiet and de- 
voted German farmers to become accustomed 
to the influx of coal miners from other States, 



with customs and manners sO' foreign to their 
own, and clashes between the younger genera- 
tions are not infrequent. The present town- 
ship officers are : Supervisor, John J. De- 
Young; clerk, Philip Martens; treasurer, 
George C. Schmidt; justice of the peace, J. C. 
Neumeyer ; highway commissioner, Fred Kolb. 



Fraser township was created at the ses- 
sion of the Legislature in 1875, and included 
"Town 16 north, Ranges 3, 4 and 5 east." On 
the first Monday in April, 1875, the settlers of 
Fraser township met at the home of William 
Michie, and elected their first officials. Mr. 
Michie, Albert Neville and B. W. Merrick 
were the inspectors. William Michie was 
elected supervisor; B. W. Merrick, clerk; and 
Albert Neville, treasurer. Fraser is one of 
Bay County's largest townships. It is bound- 
ed on the east by Saginaw Bay, on the north by 
Pinconning township, on the south by Kaw- 
kawlin township, and on the west by Garfield 
township. The Michigan Central and Detroit 
& Mackinac railroads traverse Fraser, stations 
being located at Lengsville, Michie and Lin- 
wood. Many French Canadians were among 
the early pioneers, and they have exercised a 
growing influence over the development and 
the destinies of the township. 

Lumbering has been carried on for years in 
the township. After the virgin forest was de- 
nuded of pine, came the demand for the previ- 
ously ignored and despised hardwood timber, 
and ere long the last giant of the primeval for- 
est in that section will have fallen before the 
.axes of the industrious settlers and lumber- 
jacks. As the forest disappears, new farms 
spring up, and the locality will soon compare 
favorably with the older townships. 

Among the pioneers of this townsliip are a 
few men with interesting incidents in their ca- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



137 



reers, one of which will bear repeating. Will- 
iam Fitch, at the age of 21, was a sailor before 
the mast on the schooner "Henry Watson" 
when, in 1857, she collided with the brig "Gid- 
dings" on Lake Erie. With a boy as the only 
other survivor, he navigated the ship into the 
harbor at Buffalo, and was promoted to be cap- 
tain of the ship. By 1868 he had wearied of a 
sailor's life and having a good opinion of Bay 
County, which he had often visited in his lum- 
ber craft, he purchased a farm in Eraser town- 
ship. There were no roads, and his team of 
oxen were his only help in erecting his large 
log hut, and his barn, 38 by 28 feet in size, with 
posts 10 by 10 inches and 16 feet long. He 
cleared the land with his own hands, solitary 
and alone. Twice, falling trees injured him, 
once breaking his leg, and next breaking his 
arm. He was of herculean strength. He would 
take a barrel of flour, placed in two sacks, 
one on each shoulder, and carry it nearly four 
miles to his log hut. The first supervisor, 
William Michie, was murdered near his home 
in Eraser township in 1882. The post office at 
State Road Crossing is named in his honor. 

The population of Eraser township was 301 
in 1880; 1,444 in 1894, and 1,656 in the United 
States census of 1900. The present township 
officers are: Supervisor, Henry B. Lints; 
clerk, Benjamin F. Parsons ; treasurer, Joseph 
Loyer; justice of the peace, John Vincent; 
highway commissioner, George W. .Meddaugh. 



G.A.RFIELD. — On October 18, t886, the fol- 
lowing residents of Eraser township petitioned 
the Board of Supervisors to grant them a sepa- 
rate township : Elof Johnson, Gustav Men- 
ten, Valentine Knoedel, Owen Hazen, James 
Potter, Samuel L. Bishop. Francis Gallagher 
and Urban Lewenson. On October 19, 1886, 
the committee on township organization, — J. 



M. Reichard, Charles Fischer, Fred School, J. 
Lourim and Jacob Dardas, — reported favor- 
ably on the petition, and by a vote of 18 ayes 
and no nayes the board concurred. In accord- 
ance with the action of the board at this session, 
the township of Garfield was organized, taking 
in the west half of Eraser township. Garfield 
township is bounded on the north by Mount 
Forest township, on the east by Eraser town- 
ship, on the south by Beaver township, and on 
the west by Midland County. The first town 
election was held on April 4, 1887, and the fol- 
lowing town officers were elected : Supervisor, 
Elof Johnson ; clerk, Joseph H. Waldron ; 
treasurer, Charles Johnson ; school inspectors, 
— Erick Erickson and James Potter. 

There is still considerable hardwood tim- 
ber standing in Garfield, while the farms 
cleared show the soil to be fertile, while the 
North Branch of the Kawkawlin and the 
Michie drain furnish both a water supply and 
drainage. The Garfield stone road gives a 
ready means of getting to market, and has done 
much to develop the interior of the township. 
The post offices are at Tebo and Crump, the 
latter named in honor of the late Hon. R. O. 
Crump, Member of Congress from this district. 
The population in 1894 was 302, and 555 in 
1900. Industrious and thrifty Swedes form 
the bulk of the population, who have their own 
church services. The township also has ample 
public school facilities for the scattered popu- 
lation. The voters are largely of Republican 
faith, casting 98 votes to their opponents' 21 
at the last election for Governor. The present 
township officials are: Supervisor, William 
H. Reid ; clerk, W. V. Renner ; treasurer, Fran- 
cis Conrad; justice of the peace, Joseph Du- 
ben ; highway commissioner, Alonzo Dodge. 



Gibson township was erected by the Board 



138 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



of Supervisors on December 3, 1888. On 
October 18, 1888, the following residents of 
Pinconning township petitioned for the separa- 
tion : Garrett J. Stanton, Charles L. Bingham, 
S. S. Morris, William Carter, W. J. Shirley, 
L. A. Pelkey, Dr. W. B. Abbott, J. Edmunds, 
H. Shook, H. Gardner, Z. W. DeGraw, B. W. 
Stewart, J. Barie, M. Dowley, A. E. Bell, M. 
G. Bentley, Frank E. Bentley, E. M. Burlin- 
game, O. G. Davis, Peter Edmunds, C. Peter- 
son, O. S. Bentley, James Johnson, Ed. Walsh, 
Samuel AIcGlinchey, Abram Edmunds, Will- 
iam Edmunds. The organization was to date 
from April i, 1889, and on the first Monday in 
April, 1889, the town meeting was held at the 
school house in School District No. 5, Peter 
Edmunds, Frank E. Bentley and O. G. Davis 
being inspectors of the election. The follow- 
ing town officers were elected : Supervisor, 
Murray Bentley; clerk, Edward Walsh; treas- 
urer. Smith Bowers ; school inspectors, An- 
drew Faulds and Lafayette Dento. 

Gibson township is bounded on the north 
and east by Arenac County, on the south by 
Mount Forest township, and on the west by 
Midland County. The branches of the Pine 
and Saganing rivers traverse Gibson from west 
to east. It will be seen that Gibson township 
is really a projection into Arenac County, and 
the people of that county, which formerly was 
a part of Bay, have ever since their separate or- 
ganization been trying to pry Gibson from Bay 
and add it to their own southern border. 
The eastern part of Arenac want the county 
seat at Omer, while the western part want to 
keep the county seat at Standish. Since 
Omer is more centrally located, Standish has 
to keep constantly on the alert to prevent the 
honor going to her enterprising rival on the 
east. The Standish people figure that with 
Gibson township added to Arenac County, the 



position of Standish as county headquarters 
would be secure for all time. The Michigan 
Central Railroad passes through Standish and 
hence is interested in the fight for Gibson be- 
cause the Detroit & Alackinac Railway touches 
Omer. 

These combined interests made an almost 
successful attempt to kidnap Gibson from Bay 
County in the legislative session of 1903. Rep- 
resentative J. J. McCarthy of Standish, Arenac 
County, introduced the bill, well backed by 
Senator Doherty of that district. The Bay 
County representatives turned up missing one 
fine day, and next morning Bay was notified 
that one 'of its most promising townships had 
been taken away, without one word of protest 
from Representatives Washer or Sheldon. De- 
spite the protests from Bay, the separation bill 
was rushed through the Senate, Senator F. L. 
\'\'estover also turning up missing, and as the 
Bay representatives made no protest the ef- 
forts of Hon. T. E. Webster and others were 
unavailing. The bill was signed by Governor, 
Bliss and Bay had but 12 townships left. 

When the citizens of Bay County realized 
their loss, they went to work with a will to 
save Gibson. The supervisors carried the case 
into the courts, claiming among other things 
that this steal of Gibson divided the 24th Sena- 
torial District, contrary to law, besides causing 
no end of confusion in the affairs of the town- 
ship and county. Judge T. F. Shepard of the 
1 8th Judicial Circuit decided the case in favor 
of Bay ; his decision was later sustained by the 
Supreme Court of Michigan and Gibson 
brought back into the fold. The three repre- 
sentatives of Bay, who allowed the disruption 
of the county without active opposition, were 
relegated to private life at the 1904 election, 
and any future attempts of Arenac to profit at 
the expense of Bay will be vigorously contested. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



139 



As a matter of fact, Bay is one of the smallest 
counties in Michigan, owing to the large por- 
tion taken out by Saginaw Bay. 

The residents of Gibson township are as 
earnest in their desire to remain with Bay 
County, as we are to have those sturdy pio- 
neers remain. They are many miles nearer to 
Standish than they are to Bay City, but they 
will soon have stone road communication all 
the way, the splendid macadamized road sys- 
tem reaching out year after year in their direc- 
tion, and the Gladwin Branch of the Michigan 
Central crosses Gibson from north to south, 
furnishing a ready and cheap means of reach- 
ing the metropolis of Northern Michigan. Gib- 
son had for years paid its share of this stone 
road tax, and by the forced separation stood 
to lose it all. The township and county affairs 
were naturally much muddled during the in- 
terim between the legislative separation and the 
Supreme Court reunion, but these matters have 
now all been satisfactorily adjusted, and things 
are moving as smoothly as if though nothing 
had ever happened in our sisterhood of town- 
ships. 

Gibson township has the same rich Ijlack 
and clay loam soil which makes farming in 
Bay County so easy and profitable, and many 
of the farms there had enough standing hard- 
wood timber to more than pay for themselves. 
Bentley is the shopping center and post office 
of this flourishing young community. The 
residents are public-spirited, look well after 
their schools and their spiritual welfare, and 
have many road and drain problems to solve 
in the immediate future. Like their neighbors 
in Garfield, they are of the political faith of 
Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley, almost to a 
unit, and by their vote have contributed much 
in recent years to the remarkable change of 
Bay County's political complexion. The popu- 
lation in 1894 was 494, and 761 in 1900. The 



present town officers are : Supervisor, Ezra 
Truax; clerk, John C. Smith; treasurer, Mat- 
thew Loeffler; justice of the peace, Sam- 
uel Yeager; highway commissioner, Charles 
Shoultes. 



Hampton. — The history of Hampton 
township, the first organized in Michigan 
north of Saginaw, is the early history of Bay 
City, Bay County, and the northern part of the 
Lower Peninsula of Michigan, from 1843 to 
1857, when the county was organized. This 
township during its first years comprised more 
territory than many famed kingdoms of the 
Old World! As these outlying districts be- 
came settled, they secured separate organiza- 
tions, until to-day the township comprises but 
"23 full sections, and 1 1 fractional sections." 
Its boundaries are Saginaw Bay and Saginaw 
River on the north, Saginaw Bay and Tuscola 
County on the east, Merritt and Portsmouth 
townships on the south, and Bay City, the 
Saginaw River and Portsmouth township on 
the west. Since Bay City became a separate 
corporation, the village of Essexville is the am- 
bitious "capital" of Hampton, and the founders 
of the one are the pioneers of the other. Joseph 
Hudson and Ransom P. Essex, who came in 
1850, were the first settlers of Hampton town- 
ship proper. Their descendants have done 
much to develop the rich farming country, 
which in 1850 was largely marsh, swamp and 
bayou. Huge ditches and numerous drains 
have been aided by a slight drop in the water 
level of the Great Lakes in leaving that rich 
alluvian soil in an ideal condition for culti- 
vation. 

Three nationalities have distinct settlements 
in Hampton. The large colony of Hollanders, 
settled south and east of their pretty church 
property, found their advance guard in Henry 



140 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Rooiaker.Gerardus Vennix,A. Van Wert, Peter 
Vanerp, Anthony Walraven, Charles God- 
deyne and P. Van Hamlin, pioneers of 1857- 
60. The German colony, located in the south- 
ern section of Hampton, was led by Carl Wag- 
ner, Charles Wintemeyer, William Roecker, 
Michael Englehardt, Charles Weber, Philip 
Weber, Joseph Scheimer and John Meyer, all 
of whom took up the privations and incessant 
toil of pioneer life in Hampton in 1857-59. 
Louis Guilette, who married the widow of Leon 
Trombley, one of Bay County's first traders 
and settlers, and Joseph Paul DeCourval, were 
the first of the French Canadian nationality 
to appreciate the opportunities of Hampton, the 
former locating on a farm in 1858, the latter 
following the lumber and shingle business there 
since 1866. 

One family has been signally honored by 
the township. Hon. Nathan Knight, a native 
of Maine, came to Hampton township in 1856 
and hewed a farm out of the wilderness. He 
represented the Bay City district in the State 
Legislature of 1877-80, was justice of the 
peace for 10 years, and supervisor for 14 con- 
secutive years. Li this office he was succeeded 
by his son, Hon. Birdsey Knight, who is still 
in the harness, and who also served four years 
in the State Legislature, — 1891-94, — from this 
district. Father and son were Democrats, but 
their personal popularity carried them safely 
over several political landslides in their baili- 
wick. 

Joseph Eddy came to Hampton in 1858, 
and five sons and one daughter reside there 
now. Three sons, — George P., Edward and 
Albert H., — served through the entire Civil 
War in Company F, 23rd Reg., Michigan 
Vol. Inf., the former two being mustered out. 
when peace came to bless the land, as lieuten- 
ants, the last named with the rank of sergeant. 

Hampton township has a beautiful location 



on Saginaw Bay, and the wooded ridge which 
skirts Saginaw Bay below Oak Grove, the 
most popular resort for family picnics on the 
bay, will some day surely rival che booming 
summer resorts on the west shore of the bay. 
The Center and Woodside avenue stone roads, 
with excellent cross-roads and all the facilities 
of the belt line railway, which skirts Hampton 
and connects with all the railroads centering 
in Bay City, give unrivaled shipping facilities 
to this rich farming country. The early pio- 
neers paid $2.50 per acre of water, with here 
and there a visible speck of land thrown in for 
good measure, but by hard work, systematic 
draining and dyking in the lowest places, 
Hampton has been made one of the lirightest 
flowers in this most favored garden spot of 
Michigan, where farm property ranges now 
from $100 to $250 per acre. 

The industries of the township center in 
Essexville, and it was there that the first beet 
sugar factory, the Michigan, was built in 1898, 
to be closely followed by the mammoth Bay 
City Sugar Factory. The projectors of these 
factories selected these sites because they are in 
the very center of the most fertile lands in the 
county, lands owned and tilled by a sturdy race 
of intelligent and industrious farmers. Mere 
land grubbbers could never succeed in raising 
profitable sugar beets. The soil must be right, 
then it must be thoroughly and properly pre- 
pared, the planting must be done as early as 
will be consistent with a proper germination 
of the beet seed, the thinning out requires good 
judgment and thorough work, and no crop re- 
quires such freedom from noxious weeds, as 
do the sugar beets. Frequent cultivation is 
essential to their full and sweet development. 
Fine discrimination is also required in their 
harvesting. It will not do to pull them 
too early, for every day of the ripening 
season adds sugar to their contents. Neither 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



141 



must they be left too long, lest they fall victims 
to one of the periodical cold waves, and freeze 
fast in the ground, as has happened to farmers 
in Hampton. Then, too, freedom from dirt 
and proper topping will reduce the loss from 
tare at the sugar factory, and a proper appre- 
ciation of the food value of the beet tops and 
the beet pulp at the factory will mean much 
profit to the beet grower. It will readily be 
seen that few farm crops require such constant 
study and close attention, but the wise farmers 
of Hampton township and the county at large 
also know, that no other crop will yield such 
liberal and certain returns. 

Since Hampton township has the distinc- 
tion of having the first beet sugar factory in 
IMichigan, a word on the industry in this con- 
nection is both opportune and appropriate. 
Hampton also had two of the first chicory fac- 
tories, one on Borden avenue, which was de- 
stroyed by fire, and merged with the other plant 
recently enlarged and still doing a thriving 
business on Center and Livingston avenues, 
just east of the city limits. The location of 
these infant industries at the doors of Hampton 
reflect credit on the farmers tributary to these 
hives of industry. The investment of several 
million dollars was staked on the ability of 
these veteran farmers to supply the raw mate- 
rial needed and while there have been seasons 
when the farmers did not provide the acreage 
desired for a full operation of all these mam- 
moth plants, still the experimental stage has 
been safely passed and, with better understand- 
ing all around, beets and chicory will take a 
foremost place in the crop rotation of the suc- 
cessful farmers of Bay County. Since these 
factories are operated late in fall and early 
winter, they offer employment to the sons of 
the country folk at the precise season in the 
year, when work on the farm is slack. Every 
acre devoted to sugar beets or chicory removes 



the competition of that acre from farm truck 
and other farm crops, which have ever since 
commanded higher prices. Hampton and the 
other townships have been correspondingly 
prosperous in recent years. Hundreds of mort- 
gages have been lifted and hundreds of farms 
improved with the cash proceeds of these new 
industries. One has but to drive over the fine 
roads of Hampton to appreciate the amount 
and extent of improvements carried out on the 
farms of the township, to appreciate how much 
good has been accomplished in six short years ! 
Hampton's growth has been in keeping with 
these additions and improvements. The popu- 
lation in the State census of 1874 was 1,247; 
in the national census of 1880, it was 2.016; 
in 1894 it was 3,204; and in 1900 it was 3.319. 
In the fall election of 1904, Hampton gave a 
clean Republican victory, for the first time in 
its history, and on March 13, 1905. the village 
of Essexville also elected a Republican ticket, 
for the first time in many years. The present 
officers of Hampton, elected in April, are : Su- 
pervisor, Hon. Birdsey Knight; clerk, William 
J. Stagray; treasurer, Frank Sirmeyer; justice 
of the peace, John H. Sharp; highway com- 
missioner, John VanSumer. 



Kawkawlin. — On January 7, 1868, the 
Board of Supervisors erected the township of 
Kawkawlin by detaching its territory from 
Bangor, upon the petition of O. A. Ballon, 
Samuel Woods, John Sutherland, Charles Rad- 
cliff, Patrick Reynolds, Jeremiah Mack. Alex. 
Baird, A. G. Sinclair, Charles Powell, E. E. 
Gill, Paul Leme and Owen A. Maloney. The 
first annual meeting was held at the home of 
O. A. Ballou, in the village of Kawkawlin, on 
the first Monday in April. 1868, at 10 o'clock 
in the forenoon. O. A. Ballou, John Suther- 
land and Dennis Stanton were the election in- 



142 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



specters, and Alexander Beard was the first 
supervisor from Kawkawlin. The township 
is bounded on the east by Bangor township 
and Saginaw Bay. on the north by Fraser town- 
ship, on the west by Beaver township and on 
the south by Monitor township. 

Kaw-ka\v-hn, as the Indians pronounced 
it. is said to have been one of the aborigines' 
fa\-orite hunting grounds, and well it might 
have been. The old German settlers still say 
that when the primeval forest was first seen 
by white men, it was blacker and denser than 
the historical Black Forest of Europe. The 
Indians called the river "O-gan-con-ning", or 
"the place of the pike," for then as now the 
streams of that vicinity were favorite haunts 
of the pike. 

One of the oldest trading posts between 
the pale face trappers and traders and the 
Chippewas was at the mouth of the Kawkawlin, 
where 0-at-ka summer resort is now situated, 
and Neh-way-go. the dare-devil warrior of the 
To-bi-co band of Indians, had his wigwam not 
far from where the modern water-works plant 
erected by West Bay City a few years ago is 
located. 

Reluctantly enough, the Chippewas sold 
the 6.000 acres of their reservation along the 
north l)ank of the Kawkawlin in the treaty of 
1837. for it was an ideal haunt for game of all 
kinds. The government sold it ere long for 
$1.25 per acre, and the purchasers realized for- 
tunes from its wealth of pine and other timber. 

From 1842 to 1864 "Uncle" Harvey Wil- 
liams kept the Indian traders' station at the 
mouth of the Kawkawlin, and he was much 
beloved by the red men. His wise counsel and 
generous conduct did much to smooth the way 
for the first pioneers of Kawkawlin. 

In the winter of 1844-45, Israel Catlin 
built the first sawmill in the midst of this 



virgin forest on the Kawkawlin, utilizing the 
water power of the stream. For many years 
after, great log drives were brought down this 
river to be cut in the mammoth and modern 
sawmills at Bay City. 

During the height of the logging operations 
along the Kawkawlin and its tributaries, the 
depth of the water in that river each spring was 
always a question of vital importance to the 
sawmill operators and employees. If the water 
was not sufficient to float the huge log jams, 
they would remain hung up all season. Eciually 
vital was the question of snow for the many 
logging camps during each winter, for without 
snow it was a hard problem to get the logs to 
the streams. In later years water sprinklers 
were used to make icy roadways for the im- 
mense loads of logs that were drawn from the 
logging camps to the banks of the rivers. 

In 1847 the first church, a humble mission 
for the Indians, was built on the banks of the 
Kawkawlin. The place is called Indiantown, 
and is still one of the main settlements of the 
natives in the county, but the numbers have 
been slowly but surely diminishing. With the 
stoicism ever characteristic of his proud race. 
Poor Lo at tlie dawn of the 20th century bears 
his deplorable lot in grim silence. The old 
men of the tribe recall the days when all this 
wealth of timl)er and prairie was all their own, 
and the comparison of those wild and care-free 
days with their hard lot at present cannot in- 
spire satisfaction. The industrious and thrifty 
pale faces settled all about the remnant of the 
red men, preach by their every-day lives an 
eloquent sermon on the only means by which 
to reach a higher plane of living, and how to 
attain the comforts of this progressive age. 
But apparently it is beyond the power of the 
average aborigine to forsake the deadliest foe 
of their race, and to take up "the white man's 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



143 



burden"! A very few have lifted tliemselves 
above the latter day level of their race, while 
most of them are now devout Christians. 

Frederick A. Kaiser emigrated from Ger- 
many in 1849 and took up the work at the 
Kawkawlin's first sawmill for the late James 
Eraser. In 1862 he bored for salt, and during 
the next 15 years built a number of sawmills 
in that paradise of pine and hemlock. He was 
the founder of the villages of Kawkawlin and 
Pinconning, connected the two backwoods lum- 
ber camps by railway and did much to develop 
the natural resources of that section of the 
county. He cleared considerable of the land 
of its timber, and demonstrated that the valley 
of the Kawkawlin is one of the richest farming 
districts of the State, and thereafter the town- 
ship became rapidly settled. When the lumber 
jack left, with his axe and saw, the farmer 
followed with the plow and harrow, and pas- 
toral wealth and beauty now grace the shores 
of the Kawkawlin. 

The population of Kawkawlin township in 
1880 was I.I 18. In 1894 it had grown to 
1,627. and to 1,964 in 1900. The real estate 
valuation in 1882 was $298,462. There were 
452 school children in 1883, and the chronicler 
of those years notes with pardonable pride, that 
there were 67 births in the township, includ- 
ing "three pairs of twins" ! On the other hand 
the Grim Reaper gathered but 12 inhabitants 
to the Great Beyond, the healthful climate stay- 
ing his hand in most instances, until the burden 
of many years enfeebled the pioneers. The 
townspeople were busy building roads, drains 
and bridges during those years and their task 
is still far from done. This very year of 1905 
several new steel bridges are planned to span 
the Kawkawlin and its tributaries, the stone 
road system will l)e extended and repaired, and 
new drains begun. The township spent $1,600 
for school purposes in 1883, and is still keeping 



up and enlarging this good work. The officers 
of the township for 1905 are : Supervisor, 
Peter Bressette; clerk, Robert D. Hartley; 
treasurer, John Murphy; justice of the peace, 
George Goulette; highway commissioner, Fred 
D. Paige. 



^Ierritt township, which is Ixiunded on 
the north by Portsmouth and Hampton town- 
ships, on the east by Tuscola County, on the 
south by Saginaw County and on the west by 
Portsmouth township and Saginaw County, 
was erected by the Board of Supervisors at a 
session held July 8. 1871, upon the petition of 
12 freeholders of Portsmouth township. On 
June 8, 1 87 1, 31 residents of the territory 
affected asked for separation. When the super- 
visors fixed the Ixnindaries of the new township 
as including "all of Township 13 north. Range 
6 east, also Sections i, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 
14 and 15, same Township^ Range 5 east", 
some of the residents of these nine sections on 
range 5 east protested vigorously against the 
separation. Their protest was filed on June 13, 
1871. Two weeks later 11 of the remonstra- 
tors relented, and the separation and erection 
of Merritt followed. The first election was 
held at the home of Joesph Gerard on the Tus- 
cola plank road. Gen. B. F. Partridge, Henry 
Hess and Martin Powell were named as elec- 
tion inspectors. Henry F. Shuler, a pioneer 
resident of Merritt, was elected to represent 
the new township on the Board of Supervisors. 

Hundreds of acres of Merritt township 
have been redeemed for cultivation by draining, 
chiefly through the large Quanicassee ditch. 
These lands are exceptionally fertile, and all 
went well until Denmark and Gilford town- 
ships of Tuscola County directed their drain- 
age into the natural depression in the southeast 
corner of Merritt, since which time the town- 



144 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



ship has been involved in an ahnost intermin- 
able legal tangle with their neighbors of the 
next county. Bay County has taken a hand, by 
voting some of the funds necessary to carry 
on the legal battle. Up to date the victory 
rests with Alerritt township, which has secured 
an injunction restraining the Tuscola County 
people from flooding Merritt. The Tuscola 
farmers are fighters, however, and the courts 
are still considering the efforts of Tuscola to 
dissolve the injunction. 

Among the earliest settlers in Merritt were 
Rev. Thomas Histed and wife, who came here 
from Vassar with $3 in money, eight bushels 
of potatoes and a little flour. After cutting an 
opening through the woods for road purposes, 
building a cabin and draining his land, he 
created a fine farm. His crops were often de- 
stroyed by spring freshets and heavy rain- 
storms. He always found time from his farm 
work to preach the Gospel to his neighbors, 
who came many miles through the woods to 
'hear the message of salvation. In 1854, Mar- 
tin Powell was employed in the sawmills of 
Bay City, and with his savings located 160 
acres in Merritt township at one shilling per 
acre ! After clearing it and making it habitable, 
he sold 30 acres for $1,450, and the rest is con- 
stantly increasing in value, being worth to-day 
about $100 per acre. Samuel M. Brown lo- 
cated and moved on his farm in Merritt town- 
ship in 1859. Ex-Supervisor B. Schabel re- 
ceived 38 cents for 12 hours work in the Bay 
City sawmills during 1857-58, when lumber 
was down to $5 per thousand, and wisely 
bought 160 acres of marsh lands, which by 
dint of his industry are to-day ideal farm prop- 
erty. Nicholas Thayer, Robert Whiteside, 
William Treiber, John Fegert, Frederick 
Beyer, A. Love joy, DeWitt Burr, Joseph B. 
Hazen and John M. Lefever were among the 
first permanent settlers of the township. 



The prosperous little farm community at 
Munger station, on the Bay City Division of 
the ]\Iichigan Central Railroad, is the trading 
center for Merritt township, and Arn is another 
thriving little settlement on the same railroad 
a few miles further south. Horace D. Blodg- 
ett, one of Merritt's earliest settlers, is post- 
master at Munger; C. A. Howell, for many 
years supervisor from Merritt ; Henry Horton, 
for years representing the township on the Re- 
publican County Committee; and F. R. Ten- 
nant are among the best known and highly 
esteemed residents of the township. 

With the advent of the beet sugar and 
chicory factories in Bay City, farm property 
has advanced in value in Merritt township, 
and some of the banner crops in the county 
are harvested by its intelligent and industrious 
farmers. The township had but 26 farms in 
1883, while to-day there are more than 200. 
The school facilities are excellent, and each of 
the leading denominations is represented by its 
house of worship and its devoted flock of 
parishioners. 

The sinking of the ^\'hat-Cheer coal mine 
in 1904 marks a new era for iMerritt. The mine 
has one of the finest coal veins yet uncovered 
in Bay County, and all the surrounding terri- 
tory has been covered by coal leases, with indi- 
cations of a number of other mines going down 
in that vicinity in the near future. The farmers 
of the county at first sold the coal leases out- 
right, but experience has taught them that a 
good royalty is more profitable, and this is now 
their favorite course of action. The discovery 
of coal on the east side of the river will enhance 
farm values still more, and the hardy pioneers, 
who dared to enter the wilderness to bring 
order out of chaos and thriving farms from 
malaria-breeding swamps, or their descendants, 
are now reaping the well-merited harvest. The 
population of Merritt township was 1,217 in 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



145 



1894, and 1,562 in 1900. The new railroad 
planned to cross the "Thumb" of Michigan 
from Bay City to Port Huron will pass Hun- 
ger, and it is said that the coal mine people are 
back of the enterprise, in order to get a direct 
route to deep water, and from there to the East- 
ern market. 

Hunger township was named in honor of 
Curtis and Algernon S. Hunger, the veteran 
merchants of Bay City, who early invested in 
some choice farm property in Herritt township. 
The township officials elected in 1905 are: 
Supervisor, C. A. Howell ; clerk, Fred Beyer ; 
treasurer, Adam J. Schabel; justice of the 
peace, H. H. Rademacher; highway commis- 
sioner, Frank Laclair. 



* * 



Monitor township was created by the Leg- 
islature of 1869, including "Sections 30 and 
31, Town 14 north, Range 5 east, and all 
of Town 14 north. Range 4 east, except 
Sections i and 2". The first election was held 
at the home of Owen C. White, on the first 
Monday in April, 1869. Owen C. White, Wil- 
liam H. Needham and William Hemingway 
were inspectors of election. William H. Need- 
ham was the first supervisor. The officials of 
Bangor township objected to the organization 
of Honitor, claiming it was done for political 
purposes, but since Bangor was then a very 
large township, the petition was granted. Hon- 
itor township is bounded on the north by Kaw- 
kawlin and Bangor townships, on the east by 
Bangor township and West Bay City, on the 
south by Frenkenlust township and on the 
west by Williams township. 

The first settlers in Honitor were descend- 
ants and members of the German colony which 
settled Frankenlust. and the township has many 
of the characteristics of the older settlement. 
J. Rittershofer, Henry Kraner, P. Graul, 



Charles Baxman, G. Schweinsberg and John 
Hunn were among the advance guard. Thomas 
Kent and five sons, James Felker, W. H. Need- 
ham, Jeremiah Waite, Fred Shaw, William 
Gaffney, Joseph Dell and T. C. Phillips were 
among the earliest pioneers oi Honitor. The 
wilderness was unbroken from the banks of the 
Kawkawlin to the Indian trail through Frank- 
enlust. William Hemingway purchased 40 
acres in 1858 in section 32. To reach his land 
lie had to go to Kawkawlin over the corduroy 
road, up the Kawkawlin River in a dug-out 
canoe to the South Branch, then over a mean- 
dering Indian trail four miles south. After 
erecting a log hut, his first work was the clear- 
ing away of the trees and underbrush for a 
roadway large enough to pass a team of oxen, 
which roadway was used for many years after. 
Hr. Needham always pronounced ^Monitor one 
of the healthiest spots in Hichigan, and as 
proof pointed with pride to his 12 children — 
six boys and six girls — all of whom attained 
their maturity. Joseph Dell settled on his 
"eighty" in 1859, cutting the trees, splitting 
the rails and erecting his log house, with rough 
oak flooring, and roofed with oak "shakes" ! 
Since then the township has been practically 
denuded of timber, and some of the finest farms 
in the county are within its borders. The Mid- 
land stone road runs straight through the cen- 
ter of the township, and just north of this fine 
highway is the Midland Branch of the Michi- 
gan Central Railroad, from which a number of 
spurs run to the coal mines, offering excellent 
shipping facilities to the farmers. ]\Iuch of the 
township was marsh and swamp when the first 
pioneer swung his axe in the silent forest, but 
many ditches and drains have reclaimed every 
acre for cultivation, and the two beet sugar 
factories on the West Side secure much of their 
supply from Monitor. The village of Kaw- 
kawlin is in Monitor township, and another 



146 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



thriving little settlement in the southwest por- 
tion of Monitor clusters about the German 
church and school erected in 1880. The town- 
ship has four other schools, all of which are 
well attended. During its early years the town- 
ship contained much railroad land exempt from 
taxation, which made the tax burden rather 
heavy for the pioneers. Henry Moeller, Sam- 
uel Hardy, Bernard Carroll, William Gillet, 
William Gaffney, and T. C. Phillips have done 
much for the schools of the township. 

T. C. Phillips was one of the earliest busi- 
ness men in Bay City. In 1863 he served on 
the enrolling board of Bay County, this being 
the 85th subdistrict of Michigan, together with 
the late Judge Isaac Marston and R. P. Essex, 
of Hampton. Through the solicitation of Mr. 
Phillips at the War Department at Washing- 
ton, Bay County's quota of men for the con- 
scription was reduced 45 men, which meant 
a saving of $15,000 to the county, while the un- 
tiring efforts of the board to secure single and 
non-resident men was another material advan- 
tage locally. In 1870, Mr. Phillips was ap- 
pointed postmaster at Bay City. In 1878 Pres- 
ident Rutherford B. Hayes issued the now 
famous civil service order, and 'Sir. Phillips 
tendered his resignation in the following terse 
letter: "I tender my resignation as postmaster 
of Bay City, to take effect as soon as my suc- 
cessor shall be appointed and qualified, for 
these reasons : I am now a member of the Re- 
publican State Central Committee, and chair- 
man of the Bay County Republican Committee, 
and your civil service order obliges me to 
resign either the position of honor or profit. 
I therefore resign the office of profit" ! And he 
forthwith retired to "Xe-bo-bish" Farm in 
Monitor. What a contrast between those 
sturdy pioneers in public affairs, and our own 
modern day ideals, or lack of them ! 

In 1872 the equalized valuation of Alonitor 



township was $45,023, while in 1SS2 it had 
increased to $274,220. The population in 1874 
was 554; in 1880 it was 931 ; in 1894 it had 
grown to 1,784; and in 1900, largely owing 
to the influx of coal miners, it was 2,150. The 
officers of Monitor township in 1905 are: 
Supervisor, Henry Moeller; clerk, Charles 
Thurau; treasurer, John H. Popp; justice of 
the peace, W. P. McGrath ; highway commis- 
sioner, Fred Schmidt. 



Mount Fore.st township was erected by 
the Board of Supervisors on January 14, 1890. 
The following residents of Pinconning town- 
ship petitioned for the separation : John T. 
Lynch, Clarence Fairchild, Charles Miller, 
Michael Paul, Lawrence, Joseph and George 
Wasielewski, Hugh Stevenson, John Barie, 
Fred Aloore, George Collins, John Jankowiak 
and George Capter. Supervisor George Barie, 
of Pinconning approved of the petition, and 
thus sections i to 36, township 17 north, range 
3 east, were set apart as the new township of 
Mount Forest. Mount Forest township is 
bounded by Gibson township on the north, by 
Pinconning township on the east, by Garfield 
township on the south and by Midland County 
on the west. 

The first election was held at the home of 
Clarence Fairchild, and John T. Lynch, Clar- 
ence Fairchild and Charles Miller were the 
election inspectors. The following were the 
first township officials : John T. Lynch, super- 
visor; Cash Kelley, clerk; John L. Hudson, 
treasurer ; Henry V. Lucas, school inspector. 

Since Mount Forest is the youngest, so is 
it also numerically the weakest, of the 14 town- 
ships of Bay County. But its fine track of 
hardwood timber has been opened up with 
branch logging-railways from the Gladwin 
Branch of the Michigan Central Railroad, and 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



147 



the last large belt of primitive forest in Bay 
is gradually falling before the advancing set- 
tlers and pioneers. Fifteen years ago the log- 
ging camps followed the rivers, where the 
water furnished a somewhat erratic but cheap 
transportation for the logs. In this 20th cen- 
tury the "Captains of Industry" simply con- 
struct spur tracks into the timber tracts, and 
these are doing much to open up this virgin 
section to settlement. 

Many of the settlers are Polish emigrants, 
rugged sons of toil, who know and appre- 
ciate the difference between tlie tyranny 
of darkest Russia, where every avenue 
of progress is closed to them, and the 
independence, enlightenment and opportu- 
nity open to all the children of men. The 
disastrous war which Russian autocracy is 
waging against progressive Japan has driven 
many emigrants to these shores within the last 
year, and a good proportion have gone into 
the wilds of Mount Forest to make their homes 
and their fortunes. 

The village of Mount Forest on the Glad- 
win Branch is the trading center and post office 
for Mount Forest township, and lies a little 
west of where the Garfield stone road will cross 
Mount Forest. The population of Mount For- 
est township was 265 in 1894, and 350 in 
1900. The next decade will find this more than 
trebled. The present township officers are: 
Supervisor, John Anderson; clerk, James Quig- 
ley; treasurer, James Bryce; justice of the 
peace, William Pregor; highway commis- 
sioner, William Quigley, Jr. 



PiNCONNiNG Township was created by 
act of- the Legislature, approved February 28, 
1873, in conjunction with Deep River and 
Standish townships, which with Aremc t'.ien 



belonged to Bay County, but have since been 
erected into separate county organization. 
Originally Pinconning consisted of township 
17 north, ranges 3, 4 and 5 east. The first town 
meeting was held at the warehouse of Kaiser 
& VanEtten, on the first Monday in April, 
1873. E. B. Knight, Louis Pelkey and H. 
Packard were the election inspectors, and 
Joseph U. Meechin was the first supervisor 
chosen at this election. 

The Indians, who long made this part of 
the Saginaw Bay region one of their main 
fishing and hunting grounds, called the Pin- 
conning River "O-pin-nic-con-ing", meaning 
"potato place," for wild potatoes grew abund- 
antly in this neighborhood, and cultivation has 
since made this the potato belt of the county. 
The \\'hite Feather River in the northern part 
of the township was also named by the Indians 
in honor of one of the most famous Chippewa 
chiefs of the last century, who took the cruel 
"sun bath" on its shores. The large Indian 
settlements at the mouth of lx)th rivers are 
gradually dwindling away, but an old log mis- 
sion church is a vivid reminder at the mouth 
of the Pinconning of the earliest efforts in 
Michigan to Christianize the natives. 

As early as 1850, Louis Chapell owned and 
operated a small water-mill at the mouth of the 
Pinconning, and in 1853 L. .\. Pelkey began 
fishing there. The entire township was cov- 
ered with pine in those years, and the giants of 
the forest soon attracted attention. In the early 
"si.xties" lumber operations began along both 
rivers, and when Frederick A. Kaiser of Kaw- 
kawlin entered the field, the township enjoyed 
a genuine l30om. In 1871 a fierce and destruc- 
tive forest fire swept over part of these woods, 
leaving a wide trail of havoc and destruction 
behind. In 1873 Kaiser & VanEtten laid out 
the village of Pinconning, and the place has 
prospered until 1905 it is the leading village 



148 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



outside of Essexville, which latter is really but 
a suburb of Bay City. 

In recent years the pine barrens have been 
taken up by practical farmers, and the township 
is rapidly taking its place as an agricultural 
community among the older and earlier settled 
townships. The hardwood timber is now quite 
valuable and ere long the last vestige of the 
great forest of Pinconning will have disap- 
peared. 

Mount Forest township was carved out of 
Pinconning in 1890, so that at present Pin- 
conning is bounded on the north by Arenac 
County, on the east by Saginaw Bay, on the 
south by Fraser township and on the west by 
Mount Forest township. Many of the inhabi- 
tants, including a number of Indians, make a 
living by catching the finny tribes in river and 
bay, and many others still find work in the 
surviving sawmills, stave and heading mills 
and shingle mills, which in a comparatively 
small way are clearing up the remaining tim- 
ber north of Bay City. The population of Pin- 
conning township was 2,166 in 1894, and 2,104 
in 1900. This apparent loss in numbers is 
due to the decline of the lumber industry, the 
scattering of the Indians and the removal of 
many settlers to the newly-opened townships 
on the west and northwest. The pretty village 
of Pinconning is the natural mart of the town- 
ship and its neighbors of the west and north. 
The ^Mackinaw Branch of the Michigan Cen- 
tral Railroad has fine depot facilities at Pin- 
conning, which is also the southern terminal of 
■the Gladwin Branch of the Michigan Central ; 
Woodville is the last station in Pinconning 
township on the Gladwin Branch, and White 
Feather on the Mackinaw Branch. The town- 
ship has long been clamoring for stone road 
connection with Bay City, and the splendid 
stone road system of Bay County, one of the 
finest in the United States, is gradually being 



extended to Pinconning. This township is bet- 
ter drained than some of its southern neighbors, 
and has less trouble and expense to keep up 
the drain system. Great improvements are an- 
nually being made to the township roads. The 
school system of the township is of a very high 
order, the village offering excellent school 
facilities, in addition to the little rural seats 
of culture and learning. The township officials 
for 1905 are: Supervisor, George Hartingh; 
clerk, L. A. Pelkey; treasurer, William T. 
'Morris; highway commissioner, Peter Codey. 



Portsmouth. On March 25, 1859, the 
Board of Supervisors of Bay County erected 
the township of Portsmouth, and Appleton 
Stevens was its first supervisor. Being the 
oldest settlement, and lying somewhat higher 
than the village of Bay City, there was for 
some years a keen rivalry as to which of the 
two settlements should be the county seat. The 
trend of business, however, was to the north, 
to get nearer to Saginaw Bay, where many of 
the early settlers found profitable employment 
in fishing and trapping, and eventually the 
younger settlement forged to the front. 

In 1855, William Daglish purchased a 
large portion of the plat of Portsmouth village, 
and had it surveyed and replatted by A. Alberts. 
Later additions were made to the plat by Medor 
Trombley and A. H. Ingraham. The settle- 
ment prospered with the passing years, new in- 
dustries springing up along the river front, and 
an army of industrious mechanics and laborers, 
many of them from Germany and Poland, sup- 
plied the brawn and sinew for these manufact- 
uring enterprises. In 1866, when the village 
was still independent of Bay City, the equalized 
valuation of Portsmouth was placed at $152,- 
300, while in 1882, with the village consoli- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



149 



dated with Bay City, the vahiation was 
$288,705. 

By act of the Legislature, approved April 
15. 1 87 1, "Sections 19 to 36, the same being 
the south half of Township 13 north, Range 6 
east" were detached from Saginaw County and 
added to Portsmouth township. The supervi- 
sors now considered Portsmouth too bulky, so 
on July 8, 1871, they erected the township of 
IMerritt, taking the territory largely from 
Portsmouth, and against the protests of all the 
settlers residing on "Sections i, 2, 3, 10, 11, 
12, 13. 14 and 15, Town 13 north. Range 
5 east." But these differences were duly ad- 
justed, and at the July meeting the super\-isors 
allowed the tax levy for Portsmouth, including 
the amount for building a new town hall. 

In 1873 the village of Portsmouth was 
consolidated with Bay City. All the township 
officials resided in the village, and their last 
act was to vote the money for paying for the 
town hall, and to deed the lot and building to 
Bay City! The officers of the reconstructed 
township sued the retiring treasurer for all the 
moneys remaining in his possession, which they 
secured, but the property remained with the 
city. 

On April i, 1873. the Legislature took the 
remaining portions of two sections, added 13 
sections from Merritt and nearly six from 
Hampton, and created Portsmouth township as 
now constituted. The reconstructed township 
held its regular town election on April 5, 1873. 
Gen. B. F. Partridge was chosen supervisor, 
which office he filled for more than 10 years 
thereafter. Henry Hess was chosen town 
clerk, and Nelson IMerritt, town treasurer. 

The township contains some of the richest 
farms in the county, and has ahvavs been well 
managed. The township officials have pro- 
vided excellent drainage, good roads and three 
school houses for educational and meeting pur- 



poses. The business of the inhabitants is done 
entirely in Bay City, which is easily reached 
over two fine stone roads and the South End 
electric car system. Its present officials are 
as follows: Supervisor, William Wagner; 
clerk, Fred M. Hubner; treasurer, Herman 
Ruterbush; justice, Oscar F. Meiselbach ; high- 
way commissioner, William Alberts. The pop- 
ulation of Portsmouth township was 1,222 in 
1894 and 1,363 in 1900. 



Williams township was erected by the 
Midland County Board of Supervisors in 1855, 
and originally comprised all of towns 14, 
15, 16 north, range 3 east and all of Arenac 
County. Charles Bradford was the first super- 
visor. In 1857 Williams township became 
part of Bay County, being with Hampton, the 
only organized township in the new county. 
George W. Smock was the first supervisor to 
represent Williams on the Bay County board. 
As the pioneers penetrated further into the 
wilds to the north and created new homes and 
new communities, they set up townships of 
their own, until to-day Williams is exactly 
six miles square, being bounded on the north 
by Beaver township, on the west by Midland 
County, on the south by Saginaw County, and 
on the east by Monitor township. 

The pioneers, who made Williams one of 
the oldest settlements, laid the foundation for 
its prosperity as well as their own and their 
descendant.s'. In the fall of 1854 a party of 
land prospectors, including John Gafifney, 
Charles Bradford, George W. Smock, William 
Spofford and Charles Fitch were so well 
pleased with the well-watered region now con- 
stituting Williams township, that they forth- 
with went to the public land office at Flint and 
purchased the land upon which they soon after 
settled. John Gaft'ney felled the first tree on 



ISO 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



November i8, 1854. About that same year, 
William W. Skelton, A. J. Wiltse and Amos 
Culver located near what is now North Wil- 
liams. In 1855 came Samuel Rowden, John 
C. Rowden, David Jones, Josiah Perry, John 
Plant, and they were soon followed by other 
settlers who appreciated the many advantages 
of Williams township. Amos Culver and O. 
N. C. White erected the first square log house, 
with comb roof, and when Mrs. Culver and 
family arrived in January, 1855, the roof was 
only partially completed! 

As we review the privations and the hard- 
ships of our pioneers, we are apt to forget that 
the women did as much practical work, dared 
and suffered as much as any of the sterner se.x. 
IMrs. Charles Bradford came to Williams town- 
ship in February, 1855. A cousin, Lyman 
Brainerd, who also pitched his shack in this 
wilderness, carried her daughter, only 18 
months old, for seven miles through the wood 
following the "blazed" trail cut by the pioneer 
surveyor, C. C. C. Chillson, on the line where 
he predicted the Midland road would be built, 
through mud, snow, ice and slush, to the log 
hut of her husband! Roving Indians were as 
common as roving packs of wolves, and both 
equally to be feared when hungry, thirsty or 
out of sorts. A blanket on a hard cot of oak 
slabs was a luxury after the hard day's work 
was over, while food and medicine had to be 
brought seven weary miles over the "blazed" 
trail from Bay City. 

Amid such wild surroundings and under 
such dismal circumstances, with only the rug- 
ged husband and father for comfort and help, 
there was born to Mrs. Amos Culver, in 1855, 
the first white child to see the light of day in 
Williams township. In 1856 the first school 
was established at the home of Charles Brad- 
ford; Mrs. Charles Fitch, wife of one of the 
five original settlers, was the first teacher. The 



first marriage in Williams was also performed 
at the home of Charles Bradford, Otto Roeser, 
justice, tying the nuptial knot for William 
Hendrick and Mrs. Arvilla Stewart. Little 
Miss Bradford, who was carried into the 
wilderness when 18 months old, became the 
township school teacher at the age of 17, and 
for 14 consecutive years served Williams town- 
ship in that capacity with credit to herself and 
profit to the scholars. The Bradfords were 
direct descendants of the illustrious William 
Bradford, second Governor of Plymouth Col- 
ony in Massachusetts and one of the Pilgrim 
Fathers. 

In 1866 the now thri\'ing hamlet of Fisher- 
ville, named after the redoubtable Hon. Spen- 
cer O. Fisher, Congressman, gubernatoral can- 
didate and one of Bay County's most able and 
prominent citizens, was known as "Spicer's 
Corners," where Hotchkiss & Mercer operated 
a sawmill, which was cutting plank for the 
Bay City and Midland plank road, and inci- 
dentally did a grist-mill business on a small 
scale. 

A resident of Williams in 1866 enumerated 
the Methodist Bible class at North Williams, 
supplied with preaching every two weeks ; a 
Universalist class, with preaching every four 
weeks ; and a Sunday-school kept regularly, 
with a good library in connection. In the 
southern part of the township they also had a 
Sunday-school class, with occasional preaching, 
and altogether the institutions of religion and 
ethics were not totally neglected in the wilds 
of Williams. 

The township grew more ambitious by 
1868. The same resident, mentioned in the 
foregoing paragraph, urged the need of a post 
office, invited settlers to try Williams, where 
wild lands with good soil and fine pine and 
other timber could be bought for $5 per acre, 
and lauded the plank road, then completed^ 




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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



153 



which gave tlie settlement an easy road to mar- 
ket, and doubled the value of the farms, as the 
pioneers were not slow to notice. In 1S68. 
W'illiams could boast one blacksmith shop, two 
saloons, and a Good Templar lodge of 43 
members. Two sawmills and one shingle mill 
were being operated in the midst of the great 
forest. 

By 1868 W'illiams township proper had 
over 300 inhabitants; in 1880 the population 
was 866: in 1894 it was 1,752, and in 1900 it 
was 1,818. In 1868 the township polled 47 
votes; in 1900, 301. 

The soil is a rich loam, lying high enough 
for cultivation, and the pine stumpage offered 
good grazing for cattle. From the first the 
soil has been easily tilled and very productive. 
The old plank road has been superseded by the 
stone road which is as far superior to the rotten 
old planks, as the original plank road was ahead 
of the "blazed" trail. The Garfield stone road 
crosses W'illiams township north and south, 
M'ith fine cross roads, so that the road problem 
is well solved. The Midland Branch of the 
Michigan Central Railroad crosses the very 
heart of W'^illiams, and since coal exists be- 
neath the entire township the industrial devel- 
opment of that neighborhood will be both sub- 
stantial and rapid. Four feeders of the South 
Branch of the Kawkawlin River furnish the 
water supply and drainage, aided by numerous 
drains and ditches, all leading to the Kaw- 
kawlin. 

The Polish settlers of that vicinity have 
built a fine house of worship at Fisherville, 
while the churches at the pretty village of Au- 
burn supply the several denominations. W^il- 
liams has an excellent school system, and post 
offices at Auburn and North W^illiams. Some 
of the largest and richest farms in the State of 
Michigan are situated in Williams township, 
monuments to the industry, perseverance, and 



intelligent cultivation of its pioneers and their 
descendants. The town officers at present are : 
Linus W^ Oviatt, supervisor; George W. Mat- 
thews, clerk; E. E. Rosenkrans, treasurer; A. 
H. Buzzard, justice; August Constantine, high- 
way commissioner. 

VILLAGES. 

Village of Essexville. — In 1849, Joseph 
Hudson, a roving sailor, chanced to visit this 
harbor, and during a prospecting tour was 
favorably impressed with the prospects of the 
low-lying lands on the east bank of the Sagi- 
naw River and very near its mouth. Return- 
ing to Connecticut to marry Fidelia D. Essex, 
he told her brother. Ransom P. Essex, of the 
promised land in the Northwest. In 1850 Mr. 
Essex took up 80 acres of low lan<l and ]\Ir. 
Hudson 40 acres adjoining, on which the thriv- 
ing village of Essexville is now situated. Until 
1855 the two pioneers followed the fishing bus- 
iness, but later took up farming. 

In 1867, Mr. Essex set aside eight acres for 
village lots, the tract being the "west half of the 
northeast cjuarter of section 14, town 14 
north, range 5 east." He called this embryo 
village "Essex" but the early settlers attached 
a "ville", and so the name has remained to this 
day, — "Essexville". An addition was soon 
laid out, to accommodate arriving settlers, and 
the humble homestead of the Essex family is 
to-day in the center of a hustling suburb of 
Greater Bay City. 

The village of Essexville was incorporated 
by act of the Legislature in February, 1883. 
The charter election resulted as follows : Pres- 
ident, J. R. Hall; clerk, W^illiam Felker; treas- 
urer, George Hall ; assessor, Louis Felker ; 
highway commissioner, W^illiam Leighton ; 
constable, H. Van Wert ; trustees, — Philip Dar- 
gis, S. A. Hall, Joseph Hudson, Anthony John- 
son, John Garber and Tohn Widen. 



154 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Owing to the location of the village near the 
mouth of the river, the land lies low and re- 
quired, first of all, much drainage, before roads 
and fields became useful to the settlers. Wood- 
side avenue, through the village and east to 
the county line, was one of the county's earliest 
and best stone roads, replacing planks. Fine 
cross roads run north and south from Wood- 
side avenue to the Center avenue stone road. 
The old horse car system came early to Essex- 
ville, furnishing easy though somewhat slow 
communication with the business center of Bay 
City some three miles away, as judged by the 
standard of 1905, when modern electric cars 
speed over the same route every 20 minutes. 

The first school house in Essexville was 
built in 1870, JMiss Corbin, teacher. In 1879 it 
was destroyed by fire, and immediately replaced 
by the commodious and well-arranged, two- 
story brick school, which has ever since fur- 
nished ample opportunity for the ambitious 
children of the village. As might be expected, 
the large and prosperous settlement of Hol- 
land and Belgian farmers, largely increased by 
immigration during 1873-75, soon erected their 
own church and parochial school house, which 
are to this day two of the prominent landmarks 
and seats of learning and worship in Essex- 
ville. The tall spire of St. John's Catholic 
Church is visible for miles around and on a 
quiet Sabbath morning the sweet chimes of the 
bells in the church belfry bid the community 
to worship. Well may the German poet, Theo. 
Koerner, sing: 

Sweet day, so pure, so calm, so bright, 

The bridal of the earth and sky. 
Yon' chimes, so sweet, my soul's delight 

Wing thoughts from earth to realms on high. 

Essexville was for some years a field for 
missionary effort by the churches of Bay City. 
In 1870 the Methodist Episcopal Church estab- 
lished a mission, and in 1872 Trinity Protest- 



ant Episcopal Church established a mission and 
later built a chapel. In 1879 Rev. J. B. Daw- 
son, a Congregational missionary, organized 
the now prosperous Congregational society, 
with a house of worship at Essex and Langstafif 
streets, dedicated in 1883. The First Baptist 
Church of Essexvillle, on Dunbar and Lang- 
staff streets, has prospered in recent years. 
Rev. W. P. Lovett in March, 1905, resigned 
the pastorate, having accepted a call to Grand 
Rapids, Michigan. 

Holy Rosary Academy, a three-story pre- 
paratory school adjoining St. John's Catholic 
Church and School, was destroyed by fire on 
March 10, 1904, and one of the Sisters of St. 
Dominic, enfeebled by age and infirmities, died 
two days later at Mercy Hospital, as a result of 
jumping from the second story and exposure 
in the bitter cold night, The Sisters lost all 
their personal property, as did a number of 
pupils from out of the city who slept there. 
Owing to the lack of modern fire-fighting appa- 
ratus, Essexville has lost thousands of dollars 
worth of property and a number of industries 
in recent years. Holy Rosary Academy is 
being rebuilt in March, 1905, but on Lincoln 
avenue, within the city limits, where fire pro- 
tection has ever been eft'ective. 

Essexville has from its infancy been the 
home of a number of flourishing fraternal and 
benevolent societies. Lighthouse Lodge, No. 
235, I. O. O. F., was organized July i, 1874, 
with nine charter members and has to-day a 
large membership. This lodge and Elmira 
Lodge, No. 102, Rebekahs, own the Odd Fel- 
lows' Block on Woodside avenue in Essexville. 
The Knights of the Modern Maccabees, Ladies 
of the ^Modern Maccabees, Modern Woodmen 
of America and Independent Order of Forest- 
ers have thriving lodges in the village. The 
Maccabees have their own hall on Woodside 
avenue. The Hampton Band is the leading 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



':>:) 



musical organization of the village. In 1882 
Essexville had a "Reform Club", which had its 
own hall on Woodside avenue, S. W. Green 
being president. Evidently the desired re- 
forms were accomplished in time, for the "Re- 
formers" as an organization have long since 
passed from view. The work of enforcing law 
and order and accomplishing reforms now 
rests entirely with the minions of the law, — 
Justice W'illiam Felker, the village marshal and 
the sheriff's office, — and the law-abiding vil- 
lagers cause them little trouble. Roving tramps 
and inel)riates cause most of the arrests. 

Essexville has for years had the post office 
of Hampton township. Although rural free 
delivery has in recent years provided a more 
speedy and modern mail service, still the post 
office continues to do a prosperous business 
for "Uncle Sam," under the able management 
of Dr. E. F. Crummer. 

Tlie Bay City Boat Club four years ago 
gave up its old club house in Essexville and 
built a modern club house a half mile nearer 
the mouth of he river. It is situated near the 
last bend of the Saginaw, commanding a fine 
view of the bay and of the summer resorts to 
the north and west, and the power and sailing 
yacht regattas held during the summer are over 
a course that is visible from the broad and 
shady verandas of the club house, and are 
always enjoyed by the villagers of leisure. 

The business section of the village stretches 
for nearly a mile along Woodside avenue, and 
is gradually expanding to meet the require- 
ments of the increasing population, especially 
in the rural sections tributary to Essexville. 
In 1882 the village had i apiary, i blacksmith, 
I boarding house, i shoemaker, i druggist, 3 
grocers, 2 hotels, i ice dealer, i livery, i meat 
market, i saloon and i wagon-maker. In 1905 
we find all these places of business more than 



doubled, the saloons showing the largest in- 
crease in numl)ers. There are now several 
large general stores, a hardware, dry goods 
and shoe store^ photographer, music teacher 
and three practicing physicians. 

Like other business centers of the valley, 
the industries of the village have undergone 
a complete change in the last 15 years. Car- 
rier & Company built the first sawmill in 1867, 
with a capacity of 8,000,000 feet of lumber 
per year. The Rouse mill was built by J. M. 
Rouse in 1870-71. In January, 1878, his sons, 
— E. F. Rouse and William B. Rouse (the 
latter now village president), — took charge of 
the mill, which then cut 12,000,000 feet of 
lumber annually, built a salt-block in connec- 
tion, producing 90 barrels per day, and oper- 
ated it so long as the supply of logs held out. 
The lumber statistician of 1879 also counted 
the McEwan mill as part of Essexville. and 
while it has been within the limits of Bay City 
its employees came largely from this village. 
Then came the mill of J. R. Hall and the shin- 
gle mill of S. A. Hall, and still later Boyce's 
mammoth sawmill and salt-block brought new 
life and business to the bustling lumbering com- 
munity. Then came the $2 tariff on Canadian 
logs and with a single stroke of the pen at 
Washington, the lumber industry of the west- 
ern shore of Lake Huron and on Saginaw Bay 
was totally destroyed. One by one Essexville's 
sawmills closed down, were torn down, re- 
moved or fell a prey to the fiery elements. Pen- 
niman & Courval's shingle mill near the mouth 
of the river is all that remains of this once 
booming lumbering cotnmunity. 

In 1898 Essexville profited by the experi- 
ments with sugar beets carried on for a term 
of years by Hon. Nathan B. Bradley, C. B. 
Chatfield, Rev. William Reuthert and other pio- 
neers of that now flourishing farm and factor)^ 



^5^ 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



industry, the Michigan Sugar Factory being 
buih under the stimulus of a State bounty that 
year. This was the first beet sugar factory in 
Michigan; it was incorporated in 1897, capi- 
tahzed at $200,000, and with these officers: 
Thomas Cranage, president; Hon. Nathan B. 
Bradley, vice-president; E. T. Carrington, sec- 
retary-treasurer. In December, 1898, the Bay 
City Sugar Company was incorporated with a 
capital of $600,000, being officered as follows : 
W. L. Churchill, president; Capt. Benjamin 
Boutell, vice-president; Eugene Fifield, secre- 
tary-treasurer. By January i, 1900, this mam- 
moth five-story sugar-house began its first beet- 
slicing campaign. The question of refuse 
molasses from these factories was solved a year 
later when the Michigan Chemical Company 
was organized by Pittsburg capital, and the 
following summer the first high-proof spirits 
were manufactured, the government taking 
most of the output for use in its manufacture 
of high-power explosives. 

These, with the chicory factory on Borden 
avenue, since burned down and consolidated 
with the Center avenue factory, just south of 
the corporate limits of the village, and a num- 
ber of large fishing institutions, comprise the 
present industries of the village. Many of the 
villagers have turned their attention to culti- 
vating sugar beets during the summer, finding 
employment in the sugar and chemical factories 
in fall and winter. The Boyce Coal Company 
was organized in 1899, A. A. Boyce. president; 
G. J. Boyce, secretary-treasurer, with offices on 
Pine street. The erection of the Hecla cement 
plant just across the river from Essexville, 
w'ith a capitalization of $5,000,000, furnished 
employment to hundreds of villagers, and, 
when the concern settles its internal troubles 
in the courts, will prove a bonanza to Essex- 
ville and its inhabitants. The Essexville coal 



and wood vard built bv William B. Rouse two 
years ago, and now operated by Charles Gard- 
ner, fills a long-felt want. The population of 
Essexville was 1,639 ^^'^ 1900. 

The dividing line between Greater Bay City 
and Essexville is about the center of Woodside 
avenue, east of Atlantic street, and many of the 
\-illagers are looking forward to the time when 
their community will form a ward of the great 
city. The main objection is the bonded indebt- 
edness of the city, while Essexville has not 
one dollar of bonded debt. But this might be 
arranged on a mutually satisfactory basis, and 
the consolidation would at once give Essexville 
access to the municipal lighting plant, 
the water-works, with the much needed 
fire protection, the High School, for which the 
villagers must now pay extra, permanent pave- 
ments, improved drainage, and all the other 
modern advantages of an up-to-date city. 
That many of the villagers see this union of 
village and city in the not very far future is 
proven by the defeat of the proposition to bond 
the village for $50,000 for a village water- 
works plant, at the election on March 13, 1905. 
Consolidation will give them this water service, 
then why erect a separate plant? The dividing 
line is slender, the social and business interests 
closely interwoven, and ere long all the people 
residing on both sides of the Saginaw River, 
for five miles from its mouth, will comprise one 
city of more than 50,000 inhabitants, and 
Essexville is destined to be one of the busy 
wards of the greater city. 

The village election held on March 13, 
1905, was one of the most spirited in the annals 
of Essexville, and more remarkable because 
only one candidate of the Democratic ticket 
won out, after that party had ruled the desti- 
nies of the village for years. Following was 
the vote: 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



157 



PRESIDENT. 

William B. Rouse, Rep 165 

J. R. Cotter, Dem 119 

Rouse's majority, 46. 

CLERK. 

O. A. Lloyd, Rep 135 

F. O. Guindon, Dem 149 

Guindon's majority, 14. 

TREASURER. 

W. C. Rothermel, Rep 143 

Jacob Van Hamlin, Dem 130 

Rothermel's majority, 13. 

ASSESSOR. 

Martin Richards, Rep 154 

William Felker, Dem 127 

Richards' majority, 27. 

TRUSTEES. 

E. F. Crummer, Rep 152 

W. Portlance, Dem 130 

Crummer's majority, 22. 

Archie Deary, Rep 144 

Charles Wise, Dem 133 

Deary's majority, 11. 

William Burgess, Rep , 154 

Henry Hudson, Dem 123 

Burgess' majority, 46. 

* * * 

Village of Kawkawlin. — One of the 
prettiest and most enterprising hanilets in Bay 
County is situated on the banks of the placid 
river, which gives it its romantic Indian name. 
The earliest settlers clustered about the quaint 
little water-mill built by the late James Eraser, 
and later operated by O. A. Ballou & Company, 
Frederick A. Kaiser's steam-mill, and the ford 
used by the Indians in their travels. In 1855 
this village consisted of the two mills, five cot- 
tages, two log huts, several Indian wigwams, 
and one hundred million mosquitoes to the 
square mile. The pioneer Kaiser and his 
sturdy German wife never had any altercation 
at the dinner table, because they always had to 
keep muffled, to prevent being devoured by 
these winged demons of the swampy river bot- 



tom! Thomas Munn, Edward McGuinnes, 
Michael McGuinnes, Cromwell Barney, John 
Sutherland, the late Dr. T. A. MacTavish, 
Jans Jacobsen, Amos Wheeler, Calvin E. Be- 
dell, Edwin M. Parsons, Carl Schmidt, George 
A. Schultz and John C. Westpinter, who came 
in 1852, were among the home-builders of this 
village in its pioneer days. 

The fellow-citizens of genial "Tom" Munu 
know that there could not have been many dull 
moments in the village, while Tom was there, 
and the pioneers tell many amusing stories of 
pioneer life on the "raging" Kawkawlin. One 
■day in November, 1873, a lovesick and not 
overly bright young fellow wandered into the 
settlement, and before the week rolled around 
had received the icy mitt from all the young 
women of the town, to whom he proposed in 
short order. A fun-loving Scotchman thought 
he saw a chance to relieve the mosquito season. 
A beardless boy of feminine looks was togged 
up, Mr. Masher duly introduced, and the weird 
courtship duly started. A fellow named Smith 
made some insulting remark to Mr. Masher's 
"girl" one evening, and next morning a war- 
rant was secured before a fake justice, a mock 
trial was held, and Smith fined $15, to the de- 
light of Mr. Masher. To settle matters he 
proposed to marry, and before night the fake 
justice had tied the knot. Then Smith bobbed 
up to spoil the wedding ceremony by demand- 
ing another trial, which was duly held next 
morning and Smith acquitted. In the same 
instant another fellow stepped forward to claim 
his wife, now Mrs. Masher, and the "girl" was 
promptly arrested for bigamy, to Mr. Newly- 
wed's horror! But his horror became aggra- 
vated when some wag tore off the "girl's" bon- 
net and other toggery. Tableau ! Mr. Masher 
was set adrift on the Kawkawlin and drifted 
out of sight forever, but never out of mind in 
the settlement! 



158 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



The spirit of the community also found 
expression in breezy rhymes. Here is a sample : 

No fightin' or brawlin is heard in Kawkawlin 
And the only contention is at the ball park ! 

'Tis here that the white man gives the red man his right 
hand, 
And helps him, as Penn did, to paddle life's bark ! 

Canadians in dozens, with "Old Country" cousins, 
Are fleeing the maple leaf, thistle and rose; 

And westwardly sally, to Kawkawlin valley, 

To find richer homes where the prairie grass grows. 

We have a fair river, a bountiful giver, 
Of all sorts of fishes that dwell in the sea; 

While placidly resting, or fearlessly breasting, 
Its current, the wild duck is waiting for me. 

We turn out together, in fair or foul weather. 
To help any neighbor we think is in need; 

Each man to the other is a scriptural brother. 
Despite nationality, color or creed! 

In 1 86 1 the first school was opened in a 
little frame building, and Miss Carrie Chelsea, 
now Mrs. C. C. Faxon, of West Bay City, 
w^as the first teacher. The venerable lady has 
achieved in the 44 years since passed a fore- 
most place for philanthropy, and earnest work 
in the missionary and temperance field. The 
post office was established in 1868 and D. Stan- 
ton was the first postmaster. The Presby- 
terians and Methodists held church services 
about 1863, and 10 years later substantial 
church edifices graced the thriving village. 
Social Lodge, No. 148, I. O. O. F., was orga- 
nized December 13, 1871, two members being 
admitted by card, and seven by initiation. It 
has grown continually since then, and with the 
Pine Grove Lodge of Good Templars, shares 
the honor of being the earliest fraternal and 
benevolent organizations in the village. The 
Knights of the Maccabees, Gleaners, Independ- 
ent Order of Foresters, Modern Woodmen of 
America and Masons have strong lodges in 



the village. IMany of the members live in the 
surrounding country. 

In 1862, O. A. Ballon, A. M. Switzer and 
Dr. W. E. Vaughn, the latter still a resident of 
Bay City, operated for a few years a chemical 
plant for the manufacture of hemlock extract. 
It was the predecessor of a number of large 
chemical plants erected in Bay City since. Kaw- 
kawlin has had several gentiine earthquakes, 
owing to the tendency of the H. H. Thomas 
dynamite plant, just south of the village, to 
create a terrific noise and a rocking of the uni- 
verse, whenever it takes one of its periodical 
flights into space and minute particles ! \\'in- 
dow glass for miles around is at a premium 
on such occasions, and, more unfortunately still, 
a number of lives have been lost by these terri- 
ble explosions. 

The village has suffered a ntmiber of times 
owing to fierce fires raging through the remain- 
ing forests and underbrush of the vicinity. 
One of the most destructive fires occurred on 
March 25, 1880, when the handsome home of 
the oldest pioneer, Frederick A. Kaiser, was 
destroyed by fire caused by defective flues in 
the heating apparatus. Mr. Kaiser was in Bay 
City on the eventful morning, and his son and 
hired men were at work. About 10 o'clock 
a son-in-law. living over a mile distant, looking 
toward the Kaiser home, saw flames and smoke 
pouring from the roof. Mounting a horse he 
rode the animal under the whip the entire dis- 
tance, the exertion killing the faithful beast. 
Most of the furniture was saved but the house, 
valued at $16,000, was totally destroyed. 

Just south of the village, in a beautiful 
grove of forest kings, on a little bluff overlook- 
ing the river and valley, facing the fine stone 
road, is "Riverside Farm," one of Bay County's 
prettiest and most famous ranches. It is the 
homestead of the Marston family, and was for 
vears the beloved retreat of the late Hon. Isaac 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



159 



IMarston, justice of the Supreme Court from 
1875 to 1883, being chief justice in 1880 and 
1 881. He also filled, by appointment from 
Governor Bagley, a vacancy that occurred in 
the office of Attorney General of Michigan, this 
being prior to his elevation to the bench. 
"Riverside Farm" has for years had the dis- 
tinction of being one of the model farms of the 
entire country, and is far-famed for its large 
herd of blooded cattle, mainly Jerseys. The 
Judge has a worthy successor at "Riverside 
Farm" in his son, Thomas Frank Mars- 
ton, who served for years on the State 
Board of Agriculture, being president of the 
board during the administration of Governor 
A. T. Bliss, and has lately been reappointed to 
this board by Governor Fred M. Warner. 

Like Frankenlust on the southwest, Wil- 
liams on the west and Portsmouth and ]\Ierritt 
on the southeast of the county, Kawkawlin is 
noted for its hospitality. The dust and smoke- 
begrimed employees of factory and workshop 
in Bay City know and have no greater recrea- 
tion, than a drive over the fine roads, where 
macadamized stone has replaced corduroy, mud 
and finally plank roads, to the cozy, well- 
stocked and hospitable homes of the villagers 
and farmers of Kawkawlin. 



Pin CONNING Village. — "Pinconning: 
Change cars for jMount Forest, Bentley and 
Gladwin." Such is the stentorian announce- 
ment of the pleasant-faced conductor on the 
"Mackinaw Flyer" of the Michigan Central, as 
the train pulls into the pretty village on the 
Pinconning River. We are 18 miles from Bay 
City. The trunk line to the Straits of Mackinac 
runs due north, the Gladwyn Branch almost 
due west to Mount Forest, and then northwest- 
ward to the county seat of Gladwin County. 
As the townships to the north of Bay City are 



being settled, the importance of Pinconning as 
a trading center naturally increases. 

The village dates from 1872, when Fred- 
erick A. Kaiser and George H. Van Etten built 
and operated the first sawmill there. They built 
a unique railroad of 3 by 5 maple rails for 18 
miles into a timber belt that gave 140,000,000 
feet of lumber. They platted 100 acres on 
both sides of the railway; the streets running 
north and south were named : Waters, Warren, 
Kaiser, Manitou and Van Etten, while those 
running east and west were numbered from one 
to six. With the later additions, these are the 
streets of the village to-day. A large general 
store was started by the firm, and a post office 
established. Pinconning township now has 
rural free delivery advantages, but the post 
office is still in much demand. George Barie is 
the popular postmaster of Pinconning. 

With the falling of the last pine tree in 
that lumbering section, the palmy days of the 
village ended for a time. The mills were 
wiped out by fire or torn down and removed 
nearer their timber supply. But the settlers 
followed the lumber jack, and ere long Pin- 
conning took a new and permanent lease of 
life, so that in 1887 it was incorporated and 
reincorporated in 1891. In the census of 1900 
it had 729 inhabitants. 

The business section of the village has been 
repeatedly wiped out by fire, but, as often 
Pinconning rose from the ashes and always 
with more pretentious hotels, stores and homes. 
The fine brick school was destroyed by fire in 
1904, and in 1905 an even more modern and 
handsome brick and stone school has replaced 
it. The Maccabee Hall is one of the conspicu- 
ous two-story structures, and furnishes ample 
auditorium space for the public meetings and 
entertainments of the village. The first church 
was the Indian mission at the mouth of the 
Pinconning River. In 1884 the Methodist 



i6o 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Episcopal and the Presbyterian Church were 
buih. and ahnost every denomination is repre- 
sented in this httle hamlet. Women's chibs and 
social organizations assist in furnishing diver- 
sion and enlightenment for the progressive vil- 
lagers. 

Practically every line of retail trade is rep- 
resented in the village, the stores are well- 
stocked and well-kept, and the enterprising 
merchants know the value of paint in keeping 
things looking bright and new on the outside, 
and clean within. Two hotels and several tav- 
erns provide for the comfort and good cheer 
of transient visitors and industrious villagers. 
The fraternities are well represented in Pin- 
conning, there being lodges of Masons, Odd 
Fellows, Alaccabees and Modern Woodmen. 

Edward Jennings, proprietor of the shin- 
gle, heading and stave mill, the only survivor 
of the palmy days of lumbering here, has held 
about all the positions of trust and responsibil- 
ity in Pinconning village and township. In 
1904 he was village president. On !March 13, 
1905, the following union ticket was elected 
without opposition : President, A. Grimshaw, 
hardware merchant ; clerk, H. C. Mansfield, 
grocer; treasurer, W. A. [McDonald, grocer; 
assessor, George Deremer, musician and ton- 
sorial artist; trustees, — Alex. Lenhoff (cloth- 
ing merchant), George Hessling (harness- 
maker) and Edward Jennings (lumberman). 



Auburn. — About 10 miles west of Bay 
City, exactly midway to Midland, on the splen- 
did Midland stone road, is one of Michigan's 
prettiest country hamlets. Well-kept stores and 
comfortable homes, inviting taverns and bus}' 
shops, cozy schools and dignified houses of 
worship, are clustered here, providing many 
of the diversions and ethics of life, and all its 

In the farming com- 



modern-dav necessities. 



munity about the village, the stump-puller has 
long since given way to the up-to-date sowing 
and reaping machines. In 1883 there were two 
churches (Methodist Episcopal and Catholic), 
the Auburn House (a fine brick hotel owned 
by W. P. Root), the fine store of Ira E. Swart, 
a blacksmith shop and two saloons. The pio- 
neer, Ira E. Swart, joined the great majority 
eight years ago. The place has known many 
changes in the two decades intervening between 
1883 and the present time. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church of 25 
years ago is still a landmark in Auburn, but the 
little Catholic Church has been replaced by 
St. Joseph's Church, a brick structure, 40 by 
65 feet, and modern in every respect, at a cost 
of $10,000. The town hall is located in the 
heart of the village, furnishing an ample meet- 
ing place for the residents of Williams town- 
ship. Just across the way is the office and cozy 
home of the veteran physician of the village. 
Dr. John P. Snyder, and Smith's drug store 
fills a long-felt want in the community. John 
Nuffer's cheese factory and general store, and 
the elevator and general store of C. A. Kern 
are among Auburn's substantial business insti- 
tutions. August Constantine presides at the 
Auburn Hotel and James Green at the Bay 
City Hotel. The merry music of hammer and 
anvil is heard from early morning until late 
each day, where George Clark and the 
Hemingway Brothers operate their respective 
smithies. Interspersed with these busy institu- 
tions are the comfortable and well-kept homes 
of the villagers. 

Here, too, the townspeople of Bay City 
find a breathing place, a source of rest and 
recreation after the day's work or the week's 
work is done. Sleigh-ride parties in winter, 
bicycling, coaching and auto parties during 
summer find Auburn a jolly good place to visit. 
The village folk enjoy these visits, and practice 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



i6i 



fraternity and benevolence within their own 
Httle community. We find here tlie Auburn 
Post, G. A. R., a reminder that WilHams town- 
ship furnished rather more than its quota of 
men when our country needed them most, and 
active lodges of the Independent Order of Odd 
Fellows, Modern Woodmen of America, Inde- 
pendent Order of Foresters, Gleaners, and lead- 
ing "Farmers Club" of the county. Verily these 
worthy villagers know the town-meeting, love 
its associations, and profit by the lessons of 
progress and charity there espoused, worthy 
descendants of the idyllic New England vil- 
lage, whose memory Auburn brings vividly 
to mind. And verily here too we find : 



Under a spreading chestnut tree 

The village smithy stands ; 
The smith, a mighty man is he. 

With large and sinewy hands; 
And the muscles of his brany arms 

Are strong as iron bands. 

Week in, week out. from morn till night, 
You can hear his bellows blow; 

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge, 
With measured beat and slow. 

Like a sexton ringing the village bell. 
When the evening sun is low. 

— Longfellow. 



"IcEBURG, U. S. A." — This is the famous 
fishing village, located from three to 30 miles 
north of Bay City, which appears each winter 
as if by magic, on the icy surface of Saginaw 
Bay. Just as soon as the ice on the bay is thick 
enough to sustain the weight, commercial fish- 
ermen, and men from every walk of life who 
happen to be out of employment, rig up their 
shanties on sleds, each shanty being provided 
with a stove for a heating, and a cot for sleep- 
ing purposes, and a box to hold provisions. 
Hundreds of these fishing shanties are moved 
out on the ice, their location depending upon 
the feeding grounds or runway of the finny 
tribes, and for from three to four months the 
fishermen are busy spearing fish. Fish buyers 
drive out each day and buy the catch. This 
picturesque and transient community has been 
named "Iceburg, U. S. A." The season of 
1904-05 brought out some 350 men, and while 
the catches for December and January were 
light, February and March proved bonanzas. 
Expert spear fishermen made from $5 to $10 
per day. The ice for January, February and 
March, 1905, was three feet thick. 



CHAPTER VII. 



NATURAL RESOURCES AND ADVANTAGES OF BAY COUNTY. 

Climate — Easy Water Communication Provided by the Rivers and Saginaw Bay 
— A Paradise of Fish and Game — Rich Mineral and Agricultural Resources — 
Pine and Hardwood Timber — Extensive Underlying Deposits of Salt and Coal 
— Rich Soil and Fruitful Farms — "Garden Spot of Michigan." 



Bay County is situated at the head of Sagi- 
naw Bay, and has a shore line of about 30 
miles. It has an area of 437 square miles, and 
is probably the only county in the State without 
a single natural elevation. No figure of speech 
is used in applying the word "valley" to this 
region. The watersheds where the head waters 
of the Saginaw have their origin are many 
hundreds of feet higher than the river valley in 
Bay County. The altitude of the counties to the 
south, where the Flint and Shiawassee rivers, 
tributaries of the Saginaw, have their begin- 
ning, is between six and seven hundred feet 
above that of Bay County. A similar condition 
in greater or less degree, exists as to the coun- 
ties west of Bay. Bay County is thus protected 
in no small degree from the severe wind-storms 
Avhich sometimes sweep across the State. While 
the winters are long and cold, the variations 
in temperature are not extreme, and the climate 
is much milder in winter than that of many 
portions of the State lying farther south. The 
summers are usually hot, owing to the county's 
peculiar location; the modifying influence of 
Saginaw Bay and the Great Lakes cause a late 
autumn and all crops have ample time to come 



to maturity before the fall frosts. The low 
mortality statistics show that the climate is 
exceptionally salubrious. 

Besides numberless smaller streams and 
creeks, four large rivers, — the Saganing, Pin- 
conning, Kawkawlin and Saginaw, — flow 
through Bay County. The last named river 
is formed by the Tittabawassee, Cass, Flint 
and Shiawassee rivers, and has a total length 
of 18 miles, being the largest river within the 
State. It enters the southern part of the county 
between Frankenlust and Portsmouth town- 
ships, flows north through Greater Bay City 
and between Bangor and Hampton townships, 
emptying into Saginaw Bay three miles north 
of Bay City. The season for navigation usu- 
ally runs from the ist of April to about De- 
cember 1 0th. The ice has been known to go 
out of the Saginaw River as early as March 
17th, and in the season of 1857-58 the ice was 
at no time thick enough to hinder the passage 
of tug boats between Bay City and Saginaw. 
The ice on river and bay during the winter of 
1904-05 was from 18 to 28 inches thick. In 
the early days a sand-bar stretched across the 
mouth of the Saginaw River and seriously 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



163 



obstructed navigation. This has been dredg-ed 
away by the Federal government and now ves- 
sels of the deepest draft can enter the harbor 
and land their cargoes at any dock along Bay 
City's seven miles of water front. 

There are few sections of this country of 
equal area which have such wealth and variety 
of natural resources. Long before the first 
white man penetrated this wilderness, the abor- 
iginal Indian tribes waged many a war for the 
possession of its primeval forests abounding 
with wild game and its rivers teeming with 
fish. While the larger game has been mostly 
killed off, or has sought refuge in retreats less 
accessible to man, there still remains sufificient 
small game to afford the man with a gun the 
pleasure he is seeking. The rivers of the county 
and the waters of Saginaw Bay continue to 
furnish immense quantities of edible fish, thus 
sustaining an industry in which hundreds of 
men are employed and thousands of dollars are 
invested. It is in winter that the fishing busi- 
ness reaches its greatest activity. At that sea- 
son, hundreds of commercial fishermen and 
workingmen out of employment go out on the 
ice in the bay, erect huts and live for several 
months luring the finny tribe from the clear 
blue waters. The fishing grounds along the 
bay and ri\er are generally owned by the firms 
engaged in the business, their riparian rights 
extending to the center of the stream. Along 
these grounds nets are set, and lifted daily if 
necessary. It is not unusual to draw up from 
one to three tons of fish at a lift. New York 
City is the great mart for Bay County's fish 
output. 

No doubt the early adventurers were at- 
tracted hither by tlie trade in furs ; but among 
the pioneers of this section were those who 
recognized the almost limitless wealth to be cut 
from the boundless tracts of pine timber. There 
now remains but one tract of this virgin growth 



of pine, and that is being manufactured into 
hunl)er as rapidly as modern methods and ma- 
chinery can do so. However, large tracts of 
hardwood timber, including the different varie- 
ties of oak and ash, elm, maple, beech, tama- 
rack and other valuable woods are still stand- 
ing. There is a constant and increasing de- 
mand for hardwood lumber to be used as in- 
terior finish and in the manufacture of cabinet- 
work : and while, of course, the lumber indus- 
try will never again be the mainstay of the 
county's industries, it will contribute largely to 
the wealth and prosperity of this section for 
many years to come. All the remaining saw- 
mills have timber supply and contracts for from 
1 5 to 25 years. 

Until i860 lumbering and fishing were al- 
most the only industries. In that year the 
attention of capitalists and the community in 
general was called to the existence of vast res- 
ervoirs of salt in this section, and as an experi- 
ment a salt-well was put down in Bay City. 
This venture proved successful, and from that 
time on, with the encouragement of a small 
State bounty, the production of salt increased 
rapidly. The salt-blocks were usually operated 
in connection with sawmills, because in this 
way the exhaust steam, which up to this time 
had been wasted, could be profitably utilized, 
and steam could be generated from the refuse 
of the mills. Under the Saginaw \'alley, at a 
depth ranging from 600 to i.ooo feet, lies a 
vast salt basin. The immense deposit of rock 
salt from which the brine used in our salt 
works must come has not yet been touched. 
Many attempts have l>een made to drill down 
to it, but after going to great depths, drill after 
drill has been broken, and up to this time all 
such ventures have been abandoned on account 
of the financial loss sustained. The brine from 
our salt-wells stands 96 and 98 by the salino- 
meter, and is freer from troublesome impurities 



164 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



— "bitter waters," the operatives call them — 
than the brine of most other localities. While 
we all realize the importance of salt, not many 
are aware that soda is largely made from it. 
There are also many b3'-products of the manu- 
facture of salt and soda which have consider- 
able value as articles of commerce, such as 
bromine, which is much used in photography 
and other arts and in pharmacy; chloride of 
magnesium, which is also used in pharmacy; 
and chloride of calcium, used in the manufact- 
ure of artificial stone. With the decline of the 
lumber industry, the manufacture of salt also 
fell off to some extent, but many hundreds of 
thousands of barrels are manufactured each 
year, the North American Chemical Company 
alone producing about i .000 barrels per day. 

The discovery of coal in Bay County does 
not date beyond the memory of the oldest in- 
habitant, but it goes back many years. With 
the sinking of the first salt-wells came the dis- 
covery of the presence of coal ; but in those 
days the matter was not considered worthy of 
particular attention. The drills would always 
pass through what the workmen were pleased 
to term the black mud or shale, but it was not 
supposed that coal existed underneath the val- 
ley, and no effort was made to mine it. In 
more recent years came reports from the north- 
ern part of the county (now included within the 
boundaries of Arenac County) that coal had 
been found while a well was being put down. 
A company soon went to work on the land 
where the discovery was made, and the news 
w-as sent broadcast that a good vein had been 
found. Then the company went to pieces, and 
that was the end of the Rifle River coal boom. 
It is scarcely 11 years since workmen, sinking 
a well in Monitor township, ran their drill 
through a vein of fine quality. The news of 
this discovery reached the ears of Frank and 
Alexander Zagelmeyer, who organized the 



Monitor Coal Company, the first company of 
the kind in the county. Subsequent investiga- 
tion has shown that the entire county is one 
vast bed of pure bituminous coal of the finest 
quality, the veins varying from 34 inches to 
seven or eight feet in thickness. The problem 
of cheap fuel has been solved, for the Bay 
County product can be placed right at the 
doors of factories in the city, in the matter of 
freight alone, at nearly a dollar a ton less than 
Ohio coal, which heretofore has had a monop- 
oly of the trade in this county. With miles of 
deep-water navigation, excellent railroad facili- 
ties, and fuel right at our doors, the future of 
Bay City as a manufacturing center is assured, 
for these inducements can be offered to manu- 
facturers by no other city in the State. Other 
valuable minerals which are found in paying 
quantities are gypsum, and shales and clays 
well suited to the manufacture of Portland 
cement. Many varieties of brick clay have also 
been found in operating the coal mine shafts 
and are being worked at a profit. 

For many years after the settlement of the 
county, scarcely any attention was paid to agri- 
culture. The clearing of farms began in the 
early "seventies" and it may truly be said that 
this industry even now is only in the early 
stages of its development. Probably three- 
fourths of tiie men who originally cleared up 
Bay County farms worked at one time in the 
fishing industry, in the sawmills or in the salt- 
Ijlocks. They were thrifty and frugal, invest- 
in their savings in land, which they cleared 
in the winter season. The money received 
from the sale of the timber paid for the land, 
which is now worth in many cases from $50 
to $200 per acre. It was necessary to drain a 
large part of the county before the land could 
be used for agricultural purposes. Thousands of 
acres of rich river bottom and swamp lands have 
been reclaimed bv dredging and dyking. This 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



165 



work, wliicli is still going on, is not difficult, 
as use is made of the many streams which trav- 
erse all parts of the county. In the southern 
and western portions of the county a rich black 
loam with a clay subsoil is found, while in the 
northern townships the soil is more sandy in 
character. Anything can be grown here that 
can be grown in other localities, and many 
crops flourish here that cannot be grown else- 
where. All fruits, with the possible exception 
of peaches, do as well here as anywhere in 
Michigan, and there is no better wheat, corn 
and hay land in the State. At first the 
farmers gave their attention more particularly 
to the growing of grains and hay, but in more 
recent years much of the land has been devoted 



to market gardening, sugar beets, chicory and 
fruit growing. The raising of stock is fast be- 
coming an important branch of farming here, 
the expense of raising cattle being less than in 
many localities. In the summer season the 
meadows, pastures and wild lands produce the 
best of feed for stock, and in the fall and win- 
ter, beet pulp, which is an excellent feed for 
cattle, sheep and hogs, is given freely by the 
sugar factories to the farmers who will haul it 
away. The products of Bay Count}' farms are 
sent to agricultural fairs far and wide, always 
winning prizes and premiums, and the "Gar- 
den Spot of Michigan," as it has been called, 
is conceded to be the banner 
county of the State. 



agricultural 



CHAPTER VIII. 



GREATER BAY CITY.-1865-1905. 

Our Motto: "United We Stand, Divided IVe Fall!" 

Remarkable Evolution of the Bay Cities from Booming Frontier Lumber Communi- 
ties to Hives of Varied Industries-The Rise and Decline of the Lumber and 
Salt Industries-Municipal Improvements-Public Buildings and Business 
Ilock -The Revival of the LumberIndustrv-The Center of America s Beet 
Suo'r INDL stkv-Chemical Factories, Chicorv Mills and Varied Industries- 
DisTovERv OF Coal-Iron and Steel Industries-Mammoth Ship-Building Plants 
AND DrTdocks-Fish AND Game-TheFight FOR Consolidation-The first Offi- 
cers of Greater Bay City— The Charter. 

Happly thy sun, emerging, yet may shine. 

Thee to irradiate with meridian ray ; 
Hours splendid as the past may still be thine 

And bless thy future as thy former day. 

— Byron. 



The year 1905 will ever mark a memorable 
epoch in the annals of the thriving communi- 
ties situated on the banks of Michigan's might- 
iest inland stream, who, in this year of 
grace have joined together that which man 
should never have kept asunder! In April, 
1865, Bay City began its corporate existence 
as one of 'Michigan's most promising cities, and 
just 40 years later West Bay City, the enter- 
prising sister community on the west bank of 
the Saginaw, unites its energies and destinies 
with the older community, creating by this 
happy union a flourishing city of approxiinate- 
ly 45,000 people. Drawn hither by the splen- 
did '^advantages for commerce and industry 



offered by the Saginaw River for seven miles 
inland from Saginaw Bay, these early pioneers 
and town builders yet allowed that very same 
river to nominally divide them, for separate 
corporations have existed during all these years 
on opposite sides of the river. 

During this very month of March, 1905, 
the Journal of Geography, while discussing the 
war between Russia and Japan, and the event- 
ual boundaries dividing the disputed empire of 
Alanchuria. has this to say about rivers as a 
dividing line: "The Amur River, rimning 
through a broad and fertile valley, nommally 
divides the lowland politically into two parts 
—Russian Siberia on the north and Manchuria 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



167 



on the south. History proves that such a di- 
vision carries the suggestion of extreme weak- 
ness. IModern civilization has found out, that 

RIVERS ARE THE DIAMETERS OF COMMUNITIES, 

AND NOT THEIR CIRCUMFERENCE! That trade, 
and with it all the rest of modern life, gravi- 
tates toward the rivers, and there mingles, and 
therehy unifies the life of the country on both 
sides! It will be as dit^cult to keep the people 
on opposite sides of the river Amur divided, as 
it was to keep the river Rhine German on 
one side, and French on the other ! Navigable 
rivers, while good barriers in time of war, are 
fatal to continued separation in time of peace!" 

If that is true of a mere boundary line, 
it comes home with even more force when ap- 
plied to sister communities, who like Brooklyn 
and New York City, or like the two Bay 
Cities, are bound together by the closest ties of 
social intercourse, business relations and mu- 
tual interests. Time and experience is there- 
fore bound to wipe out these imaginary divid- 
ing lines, and unite for collective effort and 
joint advancement all the people living on the 
same great waterway for identical reasons. 

The most progressive and far-sighted citi- 
zens of both communities had for 30 years rec- 
ognized the advisability of uniting these cor- 
porate interests, but local pride, the ultra-con- 
servative obstructionists, who exist in every 
community and who ofttimes wield a restrain- 
ing influence for good, who in this instance 
were perhaps misguided, yet perfectly honest 
and sincere in their opposition, together with 
minor personal interests, served to keep us 
asunder for 25 years, and nearly encompassed 
the turning back the wheels of progress for an- 
other 20 or 30 years, through the "railroaded" 
repeal act of the Legislature in January, 1905, 
upsetting all that had been accomplished with 
wisdom and patience in the joint action of the 



two Bay Cities through the Legislature of 
1903. 

But the rising generation of young men, 
witli progressive ideas, with no ties to a vener- 
able but obsolete past, rallied to the support of 
the stalwart leaders of the consolidation move- 
ment of other years, and through the keen busi- 
ness judgment, wise counsel and decisive action 
of Michigan's beloved chief executive. Governor 
Fred iNI. ^^'arner, they snatched victory for 
Bay City's union from the very jaws of ignom- 
inous defeat. 

And so in April, 1905, by the election of its 
first officials, the charter of the new and greater 
city becomes operative! A new metropolis has 
been added to the list of great cities in the 
commonwealth of Michigan, and Bay City, 
West Side, and Bay City, East Side, become 
one good, strong and united community, to 
take that high place in the sisterhood of our 
country's great cities, to which these people 
have long been entitled by force of numbers, 
industry and natural advantages. Just as 40 
years ago, the incorporation of Bay City, East 
Side, as a city gave new impetus to the busi- 
ness and social interests of that pioneer com- 
munity, so in this year of grace. 1905. these 
united Bay Cities must and will take on new 
vitality, new ambition, new energy and rise 
to that high plane of progressiveness and pros- 
perity, which in view of the city's splendid lo- 
cation, unbounded natural resources and intel- 
ligence of its people must be all its own, if we 
but do and dare, and pull together with a will! 

But let us pause a moment, to see how this 
community of half a hundred thousand, with 
other thousands still without the corporate lim- 
its of Greater Bay City, came and grew and 
prospered. Turn back the pages of time, 50 
years. Where stands to-day the really magnifi- 
cent City Hall, fit to be the capital of a kingdom. 



1 68 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



there stood in 1855 the crude wigwam or barl< 
hunting-lodge of Nau-qua-chic-a-me, the chief- 
tain of the Chippewas. A spring clear as crystal 
welled up beneath a shady nook, and meandered 
westward to the great river, which rolled be- 
neath the shadows of the pines northward into 
an equally mighty bay. The wise men of his 
tribe were wont to assemble on the very spot 
for counsel, where 50 years later will assemble 
the councilmen of the Greater Bay City. Little 
did the red men dream what changes the next 
half century would bring forth. And almost as 
difficult is it for us to mentally turn back the 
wheels of time and call to mind that primitive 
hunting lodge, with its sage warriors and coun- 
cilmen of the aborigines. Nau-qua-chic-a-me 
in 1854 was more than three score and ten, and 
a warrior : 

As monumental bronze, unchanged his look, 
A soul that pity touched but never shook ; 
Trained from his tree-rocked cradle to his bier, 
The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook. 
Impassive — fearing but the shame of fear — 
A stoic of the woods — a man without a tear. 

—Irving. 

In the earliest sketch of Bay City, compiled 
under authority of the Common Council of Bay 
City in 1875-76, by Alderman George W. 
Hotchkiss, Nau-qua-chic-a-me is given the fore- 
most place among the Indians met by the pio- 
neers of Bay City. "He was well and favor- 
ably known to all the white settlers of the val- 
ley. His honesty and friendship were proven 
in numberless instances." His band of Indians 
usually camped amid the pretty grove on the 
west side of the river, a veritable paradise for 
the natives. But the sage chief is said to have 
preferred the solitude of his lone hunting-lodge 
on the spot, where oddly enough, in the years to 
come, the business of a great community was to 
be transacted. Whenever the chieftain had im- 
portant matters to bring before his leading war- 



riors, he would assemble them near the "deer- 
lick," where busy squaws and romping youths 
would not disturb their deliberations. Daniel 
A. Marshall.^ ex-alderman and city accountant 
for years, came here in i860, and among his 
many interesting reminiscences, his recollection 
of this old chieftan, as he would troop into the 
young settlement with two or more squaws at 
his heels, and a jolly "Bu-shuu" greeting for 
all he met, is a refreshing recital of pioneer 
days. 

About 1855 the grow'ing community 
reached southw^ard along the river front, and 
the "deer-lick" no longer offered solitude, and 
with silent regret the Indians retreated farther 
into the wilderness, appearing periodically at 
the little government pay-station on the banks 
of the river, where the Detroit & INIackinac 
Railway bridge now spans the deep waters, and 
visiting the stores of the pale faces for the com- 
modities which even their fathers never knew\ 

Poor Lo! The first and last dollar of his 
government pay invariably went for fire-water, 
and when on such rampages, the wild, discord- 
ant shrieks and war-whoops would make the 
night hideous in the settlement. Brawls with 
fatal results occasionally followed these de- 
bauches, and the pioneers always breathed eas- 
ier when the red men vanished again in the vast 
forests to the west and north of Bay City. The 
tavern and store-keepers invariably held most 
of the government cash by the time Poor Lo 
was ready to retreat, and hence the red men 
were not unwelcome guests. Nor did they 
often molest unoft'ending pale faces. Their 
brawls were usually with their own race, or 
with equally untamed bushmen of the frontier 
type. Often the pioneer mother in the wilder- 
ness of the valley would be startled by the silent 
approach of moccasined feet, but we know of 
no single instance, where the lonely wife or 
children were injured or even molested by these 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



169 



roaming warriors. The oldest settler tells us, 
that the Indians were consumed with curiosity 
about the life and deeds of the pak faces. They 
would stop at the log hut in the primitive for- 
est clearing, to watch the little pale faces play, 
to inspect the cooking of the housewife and to 
partake of the viands that were so new and in- 
viting to him. but all this as a rule unobtrus- 
ively. The early historian of Bay City ap- 
proved the kindliest sentiments about the In- 
dians, "who held their course, silent, solitary 
and undaunted through the boundless bosom 
of the wilderness." His hunting expeditions 
vied in -distance and danger with the pilgrimage 
of the knights errant, traversing vast forests 
exposed to the hazards of lonely sickness, fero- 
cious beasts, lurking enemies and privations. 
In a frail bark canoe the Indians darted over 
the Great Lakes and the rushing rivers, ever re- 
treating before advancing civilization, but here 
still, with a lofty contempt of death, and a 
fortitude strengthened by their accumulating 
afflictions. The Chippewa could face death, 
but he could not face the buzzing of the saw- 
mill and with the other frightened denizens of 
the forest he left these scenes forever. 

The mighty river the red children of the 
forest loved proved their undoing here, years 
before the other sections of the State in the 
same latitude became thickly settled. The 
Saginaw River furnished an easy means of 
reaching this wealth of forest and prairie, and 
an equally ready highway to the markets of the 
world. It is therefore small wonder, that in 
the primitive and pre-historic periods, no less 
than in the colonial period, it drew the human 
race to its shores. The stream, which Long- 
fellow has immortalized in "Evangeline," dur- 
ing its entire tortuous course cannot lay claim 
to natural charms or much pastoral beauty. Its 
waters are rather murky, the result of sweep- 
ing the rich alluvial lowlands on its journey to 



the great bay. The current is not swift, except 
during spring freshets or after prolonged rain- 
fall in the valley. The earliest pioneers found 
it more beautiful, when stately pines and tang- 
led vines framed its low banks, and a carpet of 
sweet and beautiful wild flowers extended to 
the water's edge. The ridge along its west 
bank was particularly attractive, with its rich 
covering of green, and with luxurious wild 
flowers running riot beneath the wide-spread- 
ing branches of the scattered monarchs of the 
forest. The tepees of the Indians were then 
the only signs of human habitation on that side 
of the river, while often the antlered tribes of 
the forest trooped down to the water's edge in 
the more secluded spots, and packs of wolves 
romped along the shore within sight of the 
early East Side settlers. Then as now, it was 
indeed a "Silent River :" 

"River ! that in silence windest 
Through the meadows, bright and free, 

Till at length thy rest thou fmdest ; 

In the bosom of the sea ! 

Thou hast taught me, Silent River ! 

Many a lesson, deep and long; 
Thou hast been a generous giver; 

I can give thee but a song. 

Where yon shadowy woodlands hide thee, 

And thy waters disappear. 
Friends I love have dwelt beside thee, 

And have made thy margin dear. 

'Tis for this, thou Silent River ! 

That my spirit leans to thee; 
Thou hast been a generous giver, 

Take this idle song frorn me. 

— Longfellow. 

With the advance of the very forces at- 
tracted by this navigable river, its shores be- 
came even more prosaic. The earliest known 
clearing was made by the German frontiers- 
man, Jacob Graveroth, who came West for the 
Astors, in quest of furs and trade with the In- 



170 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



dians, about 1825. He married a daughter of 
Kish-kau-ko, a Chippewa chief of the band that 
then made this valley their rendezvous. The 
Trombleys found him living with the Indians 
when they first visited the site of Bay City, 
and many amusing stories are told of his droll 
wit and good humor. He was well liked by the 
Indians and did a thriving business as their 
trader and interpreter. The next clearings 
were made by the Trombleys and the farm 
instructors the government sent to the Chippe- 
was, in the hope of teaching these huntsmen 
and warriors the arts of peace. 

But the valley remained practically silent 
and unknown to the outside world, until four 
master minds came and saw and appreciated 
its wealth of resources. Judge Albert ]^Iiller 
from his frontier home at Saginaw City, James 
Fraser from his fine farm on the Tittabawassee, 
Hon. James G. Birney, of Kentucky, and Dr. 
Daniel Hughes Fitzhugh from New York 
State, were w-ithout a doubt the first to see and 
take advantage of the deep-water harbor, and 
the value of the timber lands, where stands to- 
day the metropolis of Northern Michigan. 

Foremost among the four stands the late 
James Fraser, "the man on horseback," the 
most energetic figure in the early annals of Bay 
City. He it was who personally inspected every 
foot of the valley lands, ceded to the govern- 
ment by the Indians in the treaty of 1837. 
Over Indian trails and trackless wastes without 
a guide, save for the stars of heaven, he blazed 
a w-ay as he rode through the primeval forest, 
or skirted the shores of river and bay in frail 
bark canoe, determined to know the exact lay 
of this virgin land. He was a familiar sight 
to the roving Indians, who admired his restless 
energy and indomitable pluck. They called him 
"Little Wizard" and in after years had reason 
to know that the appellation was well merited. 
He could not wait for the long drawn out coun- 



cils of government officials and Indians about 
the sale of their last remaining reservation in 
the valley, but took what he found ready. 

The John Riley Reserve of 640 acres, given 
by the government to Stephen V. R. Riley for 
his assistance in securing the first treaty of 
1 81 9 from the reluctant Indians, was the only 
available site for a city near the mouth of the 
placid Saginaw River. For its purchase Mr. 
Fraser organized the Saginaw Bay Company. 
John Riley would not sell without the consent 
of his aged father, then postmaster of Schenec- 
tady, New York, and this old frontiersman 
with hair whitened by the snows of more than 
70 winters brought about at Detroit the sale of 
what is now the heart of Bay City, for the then 
enormous sum of $30,000. The company, led 
by Mr. Fraser, at once laid out the plat of the 
new town, constructed a warehouse, planned a 
hotel and actually started it, and a dock was 
built for the vessels, which the projectors felt 
certain would soon be doing business in the set- 
tlement they called Lower Saginaw. But with 
President Jackson's order, requiring specie 
payment for all government lands, the financial 
panic of 1837-38 swept the promoters of this 
new town from the height of prosperity to utter 
ruin. Their fondest hopes were destined to be 
more than realized, but it was not for them to 
reap, where they had tilled so well. 

James Fraser alone managed to tide over 
the disastrous years, and he alone was destined 
in the years to follow, to profit by his own fore- 
sight and keen business judgment. During 
those years he was ubiquitous. He seems en- 
tirely insensible to fatigue, hunger or cold. 
When the land office was still in Detroit, it 
was a common thing for him to ride to Detroit, 
a distance of more than 100 miles, in one day 
and often without even changing horses. Even 
this terrible ride did not finish his day's work 
on some decisive occasions. Finding some 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



17T 



message or some word from Lower Saginaw or 
the Tittabawassee, upon his arrival at his home 
in the settlement above the Ijar, he would at 
once mount another horse, and plunge again 
into the wilderness, defying the storms of Na- 
ture no less than the terror of savage beasts or 
lurking Indians. His force of will and sagacity 
always brought him safe through all dangers, 
though like St. Paul of old he could recite in 
the eventide of his busy life the many 
instances when he passed close to the 
dark valley of death. Death by drown- 
ing, by falling trees, by snake bites, by 
his horse stumbling over an obstacle in 
the inky darkness of the dense woods, by the 
breaking of a frail bridge over a deep gully, 
and a hundred similar dangers, encompassed 
him. but he always escaped with hardly a 
scratch. One of the pioneers of those early 
days recalled meeting Eraser early one morning 
on the trail over the Cass, riding his horse at 
speed, knee deep, through the mud, a handker- 
chief taking the place of a hat, which had been 
lost in his mad ride through the woods in the 
darkness of the night, covered with mud, his 
face scratched by the branches of obstructing 
trees, yet greeting cheerily those he met. In 
March, 1850, Mr. Eraser learned that his eld- 
est son was very sick at Detroit. Mounting 
his favorite horse "FairPlay," a mount worthy 
of its master, there began a wild race with 
death. The trails and roads were in their very 
worst condition, yet horse and rider plunged 
along, mile after mile. When "Fair Play" 
was about exhausted, he changed his mount, 
and in a little less than nine hours Mr. Eraser 
was at the bedside of his dying son. 

Just at Joseph Trombley and Michael Daily 
were the walking marvels of Michigan in their 
day, just so James Eraser was the premier 
horseman. With the land ofiice at Detroit, or 
later at Elint, as a goal, and a choice parcel of 



land at stake, there was none who would dare 
to compete with James Eraser for the prize. 
At Cass Crossing there lived for years a soli- 
tary settler. Often in the dead of night he 
would hear a horse and rider go thundering by 
and cross the bridge at top speed, and in the 
morning he would tell travelers that "James 
Eraser passed last night." 

Horse and rider have long since halted at 
the end of life's journey. The wilderness 
through which they journeyed by day and by 
night is no more. The trails they followed 
have become the highways of commerce, where 
the iron horse and the electric spark have been 
harnessed to serve humanity. The solitary 
cabins they passed in the stillness of the night 
have grown to be large cities, alive with indus- 
try and enjoying the comforts of a civilization 
for which pioneers like James Eraser blazed 
the way. 

In 1834 the second of the trio who really 
called the first community into being. Dr. Dan- 
iel Hughes Eitzhugh, came into the valley to 
buy the land which he wisely calculated would 
soon be the El Dorado of the Northwest. He 
joined forces with Mr. Eraser, and while not a 
permanent resident here still contributed much 
to the early development of the settlement and 
future Bay City. His son, Charles C. Eitz- 
hugh, came in 1841 to look after the large 
landed interests of his father, and in this year 
of grace, 1905, is still a resident of the city 
which he has seen grow from the humblest be- 
ginnings to a hive of varied industries with 
nigh unto half a hundred thousand souls. 

Judge Albert Miller lived for some years at 
Saginaw City, Init he realized the difificulty of 
moving heavy-laden vessels over the Carroll- 
ton sand-bar, and therefore concluded that the 
harbor city would have to be built nearer the 
mouth of the river. liis judgment has been 
amply verified by subsequent events. He bought 



172 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



a large tract of land from the Trombleys in 
July, 1836, and at once laid out and platted the 
village of Portsmouth, now the south side of 
Greater Bay City. He built and operated the 
first sawmill, securing the machinery at an enor- 
mous cost of time and money. It proved to be 
the corner-stone of the industry, which for 30 
years was the mainstay and wealth producer for 
the people of Bay City. He taught the first 
school here in 1835, was judge of probate of 
this county from 1835 until 1844, and repre- 
sented this county in the Legislature, 1847-51. 
He continued in the lumber and real estate busi- 
ness to the end. He was one of the promoters 
of the first salt-well, and took an active part in 
securing the first railway for Bay City. 

The fourth and most illustrious of the pro- 
jectors and creators of Bay City canje some- 
what later than his business associates, but 
Hon. James G. Birney had behind him such a 
distinguished career, that the mere fact of his 
removing to this wilderness in search of soli- 
tude and to start life anew attracted attention. 
From the day in 1841 when with Dr. Fitzhugh 
and James Fraser he visited Bay City for the 
first time, this far-off nook of the universe be- 
came a familiar spot to the outside world. Mr. 
Birney was a scion of one of Kentucky's most 
illustrious families. Born at Danville, he was 
surrounded by all the comfort and luxury of 
the paternal plantation. Educated at Prince- 
ton College from which he graduated in 1810, 
the world looked bright indeed to the young 
lawyer, then on the threshold of his noble ca- 
reer. He began the practice of the law at Dan- 
ville, was elected Representative to the Legis- 
lature of Kentucky, and later removed to 
Huntsville, Alabama, where a broader field 
opened for his professional career. In 1828 he 
was presidential elector of the Whig party for 
Alabama. At this time he owned a cotton plan- 
tation with a large number of slaves. He was 



a devout Presbyterian, and the agitation against 
slavery impressed him keenly. He was soon at 
the parting of the ways. He must chose be- 
tween his principles and his fortune, and he 
bravely sacrificed everything for the cause of 
liberty and equality. To preach emancipation 
was not enough. He must practice what he 
preached. So he gave each of his slaves deeds 
of manumission, gave up his plantation and be- 
gan the battle for the down-trodden black race. 
Unlaunted by the sneers and insults of his rela- 
tives, friends and neighbors, in great personal 
danger, he carried on his good work. Cursed 
at home, he was eulogized the world over for 
his fearless self-sacrifice. Dr. Cox wrote at 
the time : "A Birney has shaken the continent 
by putting down his foot ! His fame will be 
en\ied before his arguments are answered, or 
their force forgotten ! 

A poor old slave, infirm and lame ; 
Great scars deformed his face ! 
On his forehead he bore the brand of shame, 
And the rags that hid his mangled frame 
Were the livery of disgrace ! 
But alas ! What holy angel 
Brings the slave this glad evangel ? 
And what earthquake's arm of might 
Breaks his dungeon gates at night? 
'Twas a "Birney!" 

His father died in 1839, leaving a large es- 
tate in land, money and slaves. Judge Birney 
requested his sister to compute all the slaves at 
their market value as part of his half share. 
This done, he immediately emancipated all of 
them. In 1840 he was at London, England, be- 
ing vice-president of the World's Liberty Con- 
vention, and that same year he was nominated 
for the presidency by the Liberty party, receiv- 
ing 7,000 votes that were counted, and other 
thousands that were ignored by the powers that 
were. 

The liberation of his slaves, and the loss of 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



'/o 



his estates, together with his other large ex- 
penses in his fight against a great Ijut popular 
wrong, had greatly reduced his fortune. Hence 
he listened willingly enough to Dr. Fitzhugh's 
invitation to "come West," invest what he had 
left at the mouth of the Saginaw River, and 
rest up. So in 1841 James G. Birney brought 
his family to the wilds of Michigan. The 
Webster House in Saginaw City had been idle 
since the panic swept the country in 1837, and 
here the Birneys started life anew, until their 
quaint little cottage could be made habitable at 
Bay City. On July 4, 1842, Judge Birney was 
the orator of the little settlement. He said he 
could never celebrate "Independence Day" 
properly, until the four million slaves of the 
South had been released from bondage! For 
15 years thereafter he wrote and preached the 
gospel of human liberty and equality. He was 
again nominated for the presidency in 1844, 
receiving 62.300 votes, and in 1845 received 
3,023 votes for Governor of Michigan. 

When the last sumqions reached him on 
November 23,, 1857, at Eagleswood, New Jer- 
sey, the good cause seemed as far oft as ever. 
In a few years, however, his countrymen by 
the blood of thousands of heroes purchased the 
freedom of the slaves, and brought victory for 
the good cause. Foremost among the great 
leaders of that movement will ever stand the 
name of one of the founders of Bay City, im- 
perishable as the human liberty for which he 
dared all : James G. Birney. And one of his 
greatest attributes was this : "He spake evil 
of no man !" Flis only sin was this, that he was 
a generation in advance of his day. Much of 
the early development of this community was 
brought about under his leadership of this 
great and good man. He shared with the other 
settlers all the dangers and privations of their 
frontier life. He hewed down the timber for 
the rail fence that kept his fine herd of blooded 



cattle from wandering into the vast forest be- 
yond. The fine dairies of today owe much to 
this importation of blooded stock by Mr. Bir- 
ney. As trustee of the reorganized Saginaw 
Bay Company, together with James Eraser and 
Dr. Fitzhugh, he planned and worked for the 
development of the natural resources of Bay 
City, and to attract settlers. Here his wishes 
were partly realized, when in 1855 ill health 
compelled him to give up the rigors of pioneer 
life for the balmy airs of the Atlantic. 

It will require no great flight of imagina- 
tion to understand what it meant for James G. 
Birney to leave behind him all the comforts of 
life, to begin life anew in the malaria and mos- 
quito breeding lowlands of Bay City during 
those early years. There was nothing in the 
settlement to attract him, save solitude, work 
and future prospects. 

With his coming a new spark of life ani- 
mated Bay City, or Lower Saginaw as it was 
still called. The McCormicks came and oper- 
ated the Miller mill in the South End; Judge 
Campbell conducted the Globe Hotel ; Captain 
Marsac and Captain Wilson made their homes 
here, and slowly but surely the population in- 
creased, and the wilderness vanished before the 
pioneer's axe. During the winter of 1850, 
Judge Miller, C. L. Russell and Capt. Lyman 
Crowl erected a much more modern and capa- 
cious mill in the South End, with houses for 
their employees, and a small building for church 
and school purposes. The first school house 
was built in 1844 on First street and Washing- 
ton avenue, in which Mr. Birney held religious 
services for the handful of neighbors. In 1847, 
James h'raser, Hopkins and Pomcroy built a 
sawmill, J. B. and B. B. Hart went extensively 
into the fish business and Henry W. Sage in- 
spected the valley for which in later years he 
was destined to do so much. 

By 1848 both the villages of Portsmouth 



174 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and Lower Saginaw had assumed definite pro- 
portions. Among the South End pioneers we 
find tlie Trombleys, Miller, McCormick, Mar- 
sac, Wilson, Braddock, Stevens, Daglish, 
Southworth, Beckwith, Wilmot, Watrous and 
Ira Kinney, the last named still living on the 
old homestead on Cass avenue. O. A. Marsac, 
city recorder for 12 years, O. A. Watrous and 
H. N. Watrous are sons of those pioneers. 
Curtis Munger and Ed. Park opened a store in 
1848, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Carney opened the 
boarding house for the Eraser mill, while Dr. 
Daniel Hughes Fitzhugh, Alexander McKay 
and family and J. W. Putnam erected cozy 
homes. Among the other permanent arrivals 
were Clark Aloulthrop, Thomas Whitney, John 
Drake, S. Drake, and George Carpenter, whose 
descendants still honor the community their 
fathers helped to establish. 

In 1850-51 another group of enterprising 
pioneers was added by the arrival of William 
John and Alexander McEwan, who built and 
operated a sawmill ; Henry Raymond, James 
Watson and Charles E. Jennison came and en- 
terel the mercantile business. Mr. Jennison is 
the only survivor, and the business he estab- 
hshed 55 years ago is being continued to this 
day by his sons, only on a much larger scale. 
Dr. George E. Smith was the first permanent 
medical practitioner here, while James Fox 
opened the first law office. Jonathan S. Bar- 
clay w'as then building the Wolverton House, 
which was the post office, theater, town hall and 
ballroom combined for the little settlement for 
many years. 

The tug "Lathrop," owned and sailed by 
Capt. Benjamin Pierce, was the forerunner of 
that vast fleet that in after years handled the 
immense log rafts and lumber barges that com- 
pletely covered the great river. Capt. Darius 
Cole also became interested in river navigation, 
and soon crafts of all descriptions were fulfill- 



ing the fondest expectations of the projectors 
of this community at the mouth of the river. 

Ere James G. Birney bade farew'ell to the 
settlement he helped to create, he witnessed the 
erection of the Catholic Church on Washington 
avenue, between Second and Third streets, in 
1 851; the Fay mill, William Peters' mill, H. 
M. Bradley's mill, in 1852 ; the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, on W^ashington avenue, between 
Seventh and Eighth streets, in 1855. All these 
buildings and industries brought mechanics and 
laboring men, and the village was growing 
apace. In 1854 the first ship was built here by 
George Carpenter and J. A. Weed, a fishing 
schooner named "Java." 

In 1855 Tom Dodge built a hotel on Third 
and Saginaw- streets, which then as now was a 
favorite resort for the lumber jacks and dock 
wallopers. The buildings here and on Wash- 
ington avenue were in a little swamp, and dur- 
ing spring freshets could only be reached by 
boat. The young folks in the settlement held 
dances at Dodge's hotel, with a usual scarcity 
of girls, but the old settlers tell us gleefully 
that even a blanketed Indian would be pressed 
into service on such jolly occasions. 

In 1856, Hon. James Birney came to take 
the place of his distinguished father in the wilds 
of Michigan, and he immediately agitated 
changing the name of the village. Accordingly 
he drew up a bill Avhich was passed by the 
State Legislature in February, 1857. providing 
"That tlie name of the village of Lower Sagi- 
naw, in the township of Hampton, be, and the 
same is, hereby changed to Bay City." James 
Eraser and Charles B. Cottrell came in 1856 
to reside here permanently. In 1857 the glory 
of the tallow' candle vanished before the kero- 
sene oil lamps, first exhibited as a curiosity to 
the villagers at Cottrell's store on Water and 
Second streets! About this time "Deacon" J. 
H. Little tried his luck in this lumber town, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



175 



later going into the grocery business. In the 
year of grace 1905 he bobs up serenely as a 
supervisor from the 13th Ward of Greater Bay 
City! In 1852 an epidemic of cholera swept 
over the vallev, Thomas Rogers, first black- 
smith, justice and mail carrier of this settle- 
ment, being among the first victims. His wife, 
daughter of Dr. Wilcox, of Watertown, New 
York, had studied medicine in her youth, and 
for many years was the only medical adviser in 
the village. During this epidemic she did he- 
roic work, being among the sick and dying at 
all hours of the day and night. She is one of 
the heroic figures m the pages of our pioneer 
histor}'. 

During these years Hon. James Birney 
bought considerable property in Bay City, 
which he added to his father's former estate, 
and share in die original Saginaw Bay Com- 
pany. He was for years the leading spirit in 
matters of- education, public improvements, 
and the promotion of the community's welfare. 
He was for years the most prominent citizen 
of Bay City, serving his constituency in the 
State Senate, 1858-59; was lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor, 1860-61; circuit judge, 1861-65; Uni- 
ted States commissioner for the Centennial at 
Philadelphia in 1876, and later United States 
Minister to the Netherlands, 1876-81. He es- 
tablished the Chronicle as a weekly in 1871, 
and in 1873 as a daily. His eldest son, named 
after his illustrious grandfather, James G. Bir- 
ney, ser\-ed with distinction through the Civil 
War, as captain of the Seventh Michigan In- 
fantry, and died while serving with the regular 
army in 1869. Just as the grandsire planned 
and planted the first rugged settlement, just so 
his son planned and worked for the rapidly 
growing young city. He, more than any other 
perhaps assisted in securing the first railroad, 
the State roads and the public libraries. He 
W'as a firm believer in booming the citv, and 



ne\er lost an opportunity to praise its superb 
qualities as a place for business, health and rec- 
reation. His example can be followed with 
profit by generations yet to come. 

With the organization of Bay County in 

1857, and its entry into the official world upon 
the decision of the Supreme Court in May, 

1858, the village of Bay City assumed new dig- 
nity, and the county-seat residents felt the im- 
petus of new vitality. The projectors of the 
little community provided land for the county 
buildings, for parks and for churches. The 
site for the Court House and Jail, with the ad- 
joining parks, proved a particularly happy se- 
lection. But the first county officials met in a 
building owned by James Eraser, located on 
the river bank at the foot of Fourth avenue, 
until 1868, when the present Court House was 
built at a cost of $40,000. The little wooden 
Jail on Sixth street, between Water and Sagi- 
naw streets, was wiped out in the great fire of 
1863, and was replaced by another wooden 
building on Seventh and Monroe streets, which 
was used until 1870, when the present commo- 
dious County Jail and sheriff's residence was 
erected. This building is a two-story structure, 
of white brick, with iron-lined Jail, the cells of 
boiler iron being two stories high in the center 
of the main room, with large corridors between 
the gratings and the outer wall. The upper 
story has apartments for female prisoners and 
fraudulent debtors. The whole structure is fur- 
nished with all modern appliances assuring the 
health and comfort of the prisoners. The Jail 
building also cost originally $40,000. 

In this year of grace 1905 the Court House 
hardly suffices for the protection of the county 
records and the housing of the county officials. 
Thousands of dollars have been spent on the 
building in past years, and again within the last 
year for a new heating apparatus and other 
renovations. The county at the time it was 



176 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



built had about 15,000 inhabitants; in 1905, 
with ail influx of farmers and settlers, it has 
nearly 70,000, and an effort is again being made 
to secure a more modern Court House. Twice 
before, the proposition to bond the county to 
replace this landmark of pioneer clays has been 
decisively voted down by the citizens, but each 
time with less opposition, and the time is not 
far distant when Bay County will have to se- 
cure a larger and more modern Court House. 
In its day it was the model adopted by many of 
the younger surrounding counties. 

While speaking of the county's public build- 
ings and comparative growth, a review of the 
last State tax statistics will be opportune. The 
valuation estimated by the State Board of Tax 
commissioners was $26,077,673 ; the valuation 
by the Board of Supervisors was $23,312,308. 
The valuation as equalized by the Board of 
Equalization, $32,000,000 ; the aggregate of 
State tax paid, $54,139.91, the percentage ac- 
cording to equalization being ,02027. The as- 
sessed valuation of Bay County, then mainly 
the city of Bay City, at the time the Old Court 
House was built was $1,166,475. The assessed 
valuation in 1871 was $2,725,600, amount of 
tax, $3,141 ; assessed valuation in 1881, $11,- 
000,000, amount of tax, $25,394.10. These 
figures carry with them a comparison of the 
growth of city and county values as the forest 
has been gradually replaced by farms, villages 
and an enterprising united city. 

The availability of Bay City as a manufac- 
turing and shipping point was first appreciated 
by the men in the lumber industry. The vast 
forest on both sides of the river, the 12 miles 
of river front with the deep-water channel, and 
the cheap and convenient means of securing a 
seemingly inexhaustible log supply and equally 
easy and cheap access to the markets of the 
world, brought into life the greatest lumbering 
community the world had ever seen. In 1859, 



when Bay City began its corporate existence as 
a village, there were but half a dozen sawmills, 
but from that time forth they sprang up all 
along the river front, as well as on adjacent 
streams. The fishing industry furnished em- 
ployment to many men and furnished a good 
share of the exports from this frontier village. 
Then came the discovery of the vast salt basin, 
and the success of these salt-wells can be under- 
stood when we note that in 1865 the salt pro- 
duction of Bay City alone amounted to 259,061 
barrels. That same year the sawmills cut 154,- 
727,945 feet of lumber. The rapid develop- 
ment of these kindred industries brought with 
them a growth of wealth and population during 
the next 15 years, almost unprecedented in the 
annals of our country. 

The city of Bay City was chartered in 1865, 
and the days of the pioneer were done. From 
that eventful year, when peace again came to 
bless our land, and thousands of the veteran 
soldiers took up government lands here and 
elsewhere, or entered into the promising mer- 
cantile field, this community not only turned 
over a new leaf in its municipal history but also 
began to mutliply its industries and population 
at a rate that attracted the attention of the 
world. From that time the records of the com- 
munity are no longer the personal reminiscen- 
ces of the hardy pioneers, but rather the record 
of collective effort, mammoth business enter- 
prises, and advancement in every line. Bay 
City had become almost at a bound a 
booming frontier lumber town ! The open- 
ing of the Flint & Pere Marquette 
Railroad to Detroit in 1867, marks an- 
other epoch in the city's growth and develop- 
ment. In 1868 the village of Wenona across 
the river, now the West Side of the united city, 
came to the front through the building of the 
Jackson-Chicago branch of the Michigan Cen- 
tral, and in 1871 the Bay City-Detroit Branch 




SAWMILL OF THE KERN MANUFACTURING 
COMPANY, 
Bay City. W. S. 





PLANT OF THE HAXSON-W A 1^ I ' \ I \ !■ 
COMPANY, 
Bay City, E. S. 




TRAIN OF LOGS LOADED FOR BAY CITY 



SALT BLOCK OF THE KERN MANUFACTURING 

COMPANY, 

Bay City, W. S. 




LUMBER YARD OF E. B. FOSS & COMPANY, 

On the River Front, Bay City, E. S. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



179 



of the Michigan Central opened up new fields 
of trade and commerce to the growing com- 
munities. 

It will be interesting here to recall that Bay 
City had 810 people in i860; 3,359 in 1865; 
7,064 in 1870; 13,676 in 1874 and 17,003 in 
1876. In 1880, through the national census, 
the city was heralded far and wide as having a 
greater percentage of increase in the decade 
1870 to 1880 than any other city in the country, 
and but two at all approached the ratio. The 
ne.xt 10 years showed a healthy growth, but as 
every available site along the river front was 
taken up by sawmills and lumber yards, and as 
the supply of logs was giving out under the 
buzz of countless saws, there was no longer 
room for the rapid multiplication of mills and 
population that had marked the preceding 10 
years. Bay City, East Side, had 27,839 people 
in 1890, an increase of 7,146 during that de- 
cade, being an increase of 34.5 per cent. Dur- 
ing the first four years of the next decade the 
city continued its steady growth, the State 
census of 1894 showing a population of 30,042. 
Then came the fatal blunder at Washington, 
by which Congress raised the import duty on 
Canadian lumber to $2 from $1. The log 
supply which during those years had been grad- 
ually receding further north, and since 1890 
was largely coming from the Georgian Bay 
region in Canada, was at once shut off by the 
retaliatory measures of the Canadian govern- 
ment, and with one stroke of the pen the flour- 
ishing lumber industry of Bay City and the west 
shore of Lake Huron was doomed. Hence we 
find that the Federal census of 1900 shows a 
loss for Bay City, as compared to the State 
census of 1894, being only 27,628, a loss of 
0.8 per cent. These figures indicate the growth, 
boom and decline of the lumber industry, which 
laid the foundation of the city. 

Equally instructive are the assessment val- 



ues of these several periods : The valuation in 
i860 was $530,589; in 1865, $663,000; in 
1870, $1,166,475; '" 1874, $1,700,250; in 
1880, $7,722,310; in 1882, $9,084,436. This 
is the high mark reached during the days of the 
lumber and salt booms. During this year of 
1882 there were shipped from this port 582,- 
147,000 feet of lumber, 112,281,000 shingles, 
22,000,000 lath, 440,000 barrels of salt, besides 
staves, hoops, shocks, railroad ties, cedar posts, 
pickets, barrels and 7,853,032 feet of pine and 
oak timber ! The growth of the lumber in- 
dustry to these magnificent dimensions is illus- 
trated in the comparative figures of lumber ex- 
perts. In 1863 there were shipped 25,730,889 
feet of lumber; in 1868, 217,165,340: and 252,- 
862,785 feet were exported in 1870. While 
these figures are from the customs office on the 
East Side, they include the shipments from the 
West Side as well, and a review of the share 
taken in developing this city by the "fair bride"' 
of 1905 will be in order. 

The proud citizens of the new city of Bay 
City in 1865 could not see much with which to 
consolidate on the west bank of the river. To 
the north was the village of Banks, now in the 
1 2th Ward, with sawmills, salt-blocks, and fish 
houses ; then came a long stretch of primeval 
forest, where stand today the industries and 
homes of the 13th Ward; then another strag- 
gling village just building up around the mam- 
moth new Sage sawmill, now the 14th Ward; 
again two miles of wooded ridge, now the 15th 
Ward ; and then the hamlet of Salzburg, now 
the 1 6th Ward, with its still independent neigh- 
bor, Portsmouth, now the Seventh Ward, on 
the east bank of the river. 

Each of these four villages had aspirations 
and municipal governments of its own, and 
watched with jealous eye the growth and am- 
bitious of their little neighboring cominunities. 
Joseph Trombley's 2,000 acres at Banks in- 



i8o 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



eluded the village which contained Whitney's 
mill, Moore, Smith & Company's mill, George 
Lord's mill, each having salt works in connec- 
tion, while Beckwith & Sinclair and Leng & 
Bradfield operated large salt-blocks. Crosth- 
waite's shipyard began the industry there, that 
since has grown to mammoth proportions on 
the West Side. John Weed also built boats in 
Banks for the lake trade. Two taverns, four 
cooper shops, one general store and several fish 
houses are enumerated as the business places 
of Banks in 1865. W. F. Benson opened the 
first post office in 1864, serving a village popu- 
lation of 511, beside a few scattered farmers. 
Wenona, today the heart of the West Side, did 
not become settled until the Henry W. Sage 
sawmill, originally known as the Sage & Mc- 
Graw mill, was erected. The village plat of 
116 acres cost that firm $21,000, and its excel- 
lent location at once brought it into prominence. 
John Hayes, then superintended the only 
scow available for moving horses, cattle and 
wagons across the river, and his good wife 
dealt out beverages to thirsty travelers at their 
home on the west bank of the river. Mrs. 
Hayes was a typical tavern-keeper of those 
early days. Dan Marshall, the pioneer and 
present city accountant, recounts gleefully how 
Mrs. Hayes would personally and drastically 
chastise travelers who were poor pay, "ruling 
the roost" with an iron hand. This lone tavern 
did a booming business during 1864-65 when 
Wenona was just coming to life, and then had 
to give way before more modern and preten- 
tious hotels. 

The west bank of the river was more 
swampy and low than the east bank, and this 
probably accounts for the earlier settlement of 
the less attractive east shore, back from the 
river. This was due to the gradual change of 
the course of the river, which did its best, year 
after vear, to straighten out its tortuous course. 



Hence the Sage mill was built almost entirely 
on spiles driven into the murky river bottom, 
and the great lumberyard was laid out on a 
swamp that was entirely filled in with refuse 
from the mill and city. In 1905 it is no uncom- 
mon sight to see poor people going over the 
surface, picking up the chips and slabs dried by 
the passing years, yet never rotted. 

Few communities in this country have 
grown more rapidly than did the village of 
Wenona, started in 1864. By 1865 the county 
began the building of the plank road west to 
Midland, while the State extended the State 
road on the west bank from Saginaw to Wen- 
ona, and opened a road north through the gov- 
ernment's swamp lands, since drained and cul- 
tivated. The Third street bridge was built in 
1865, for foot passengers. A post ofiice and 
telegraph office were established in Wenona, 
and the Presbyterian Church built. The Sage 
store and other business places sprang up over 
night, and the population multiplied rapidly. 

Wenona was incorporated in 1 867. An old 
painting of this frontier village shows Indians 
in gaudy paint and picturesque wigwams in the 
foreground, and all the bustle and enterprise of 
a booming lumber town in the background. The 
steamer "Emerald" and schooner "Tuscola" are 
loading lumber and other supplies at a primitive 
dock. The same kind of a scene would suffice to 
call to mind Salzburg, the village two miles 
further down the river. Wenona records for 
1867 the cutting of a canal from the west chan- 
nel through the Middle Ground to the river, 
which west channel has since been entirely filled 
in, save for the wharves between the lumber 
docks with their deep-water channels. A 
shingle-mill, salt-block and sawmill for cutting 
ship timber were erected that year on the Sage 
property. 

Dr. Isaac E. Randall came from Saratoga, 
New York, the first medical practitioner of the 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



i8r 



^^'est Side, who in 1905 is one of the foremost 
physicians of Miciiigan, beloved antl respected 
by tlie community in which he has practiced for 
more than half a century. With George A. 
Allen, James A. McKnight, E. T. Carrington, 
David G. Arnold, Lafayette Roundsville, H. H. 
Aplin antl a few others, he shares the honor of 
being one of the incorporators of Wenona, later 
W'est Bay City, and living to see the one great 
and united city become chartered in April, 1905. 
To few mortals it is given to celebrate such an 
anniversary. 

The world-famous Sage mill cut 22,601,- 
051 feet of lumber during 1867, and commem- 
orated the close of the season's work with a 
banquet for the hundreds of employees at the 
Bunnell House. Among the improvements by 
the Sage company in 1868 was the erection of a 
two-story business block, 30 by 80 feet ; a ware- 
house, 24 by 60 feet ; a two-story boarding 
house, 30 by 80 feet; a two-story brick office, 
20 by 60 feet; a tenement house, 400 by 24 
feet, two stories high, divided into 25 suites, 
each with its own back yard and wood-shed ; 
and 23 houses of various sizes for the use of 
the employees. It was estimated the company 
had invested over one million dollars in the vil- 
lage within three years aftqr its operations were 
begun in W'enona. 

The main event of 1868 was the completion 
of the passenger station for the Michigan Cen- 
tral Railroad, to-day the road's freight station 
on River street. It is 200 by 40 feet, roofed 
witli slate, was built by George Campbell and 
cost $10,500. Slate roofing was quite popular 
at that time, chietly because of the fires which 
periodically swept over these lumbering towns. 

The first train schedule is interesting read- 
ing in 1905. In 1868 trains for Jackson and 
Chicago left at 9 A. M. and 2 140 P. M., with 
an accommodation train at 8 P. M. for Sag- 
inaw. Trains arrived at 8 :30 A. M., and i 150 



and 7 P. M. These were booming times on the 
West Side! 

Faxon's Hall, was the only jjublic meeting 
place, and the Methodists held service there. A 
new brick school, 60 by 30 feet, with wings 10 
by 30 feet, all two stories high, accommodating 
360 scholars, was built on the Midland plank 
road at a cost of $10,700. Supt. A. L. Gum- 
ming opened the school January 27th with 180 
scholars. Miss Stocking taught the interme- 
diate department, and Miss Lester, the primary 
class. The Irwin House at the bridge approach, 
and the Bunnell House, just completed, were 
the town taverns. The planing mill of D. G. 
Arnold & Company, two stories liigh, 44 by 
82 feet in dimensions, was the second large in- 
dustry in Wenona, beginning operations in 
1865. By 1868 the village claimed nearly 1,000 
inhabitants and built over 1,000 feet of side- 
walks. There were no vacant houses and lots 
50 by 100 feet, on Midland street, sold for from 
$150 to $2,000. New industries rallied around 
Wenona, bringing more people, and new busi- 
ness houses. 

While the last of the three villages to begin 
life on the West Side, A\'enona soon surpassed 
its suburban villages and in 1877 absorbed 
Banks and Salzburg, and became the sister 
city of West Bay City, and in April of this 
year of grace, 1905, becomes Bay City, West 
Side. 

In 1865 when Bay City began its municipal 
existence as a city, the hamlet of Salzburg oc- 
cupied a prominent place on the landscape to 
the southwest. That elevated and wooded loca- 
tion was a favorite spot for the Indian camp- 
fires, and the first white settler was Benjamin 
Cushway, sent here by the government as black- 
smith for the natives. Finding nothing doing in 
the agricultural line, he turned trader and inter- 
preter, and for years did a thriving business 
among the red men and early pioneers. In 



I 82 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



1842, Capt. Solomon S. Stone and wife came 
by canoe from Detroit, and settled in a wig- 
wam on the deserted Indian tield just west of 
the approach to the present Lafayette avenue 
bridge. For three years he tilled this field, with 
much better success than the Indians, and by 
catching and selling muskrat and beaver skins 
accumulated enough money to buy Stone Isl- 
and, where he lived until his death in 1883. 

Dr. Daniel Hughes Fitzhugh in 1837 se- 
lected the site of Salzburg as a very promising 
location for future settlement, and bought large 
tracts of land along the river front. His judg- 
ment was soon verified, and by 1865 the hamlet 
was alive with industries. In 1862, Dr. Fitz- 
hugh platted part of his land from the Lafayette 
avenue bridge north to the section line, and 
since the main industry was the manufacture 
of salt at that time, he named the village Salz- 
burg, in honor of the many German settlers, 
and after the great salt-mine city in Austria. 
Dr. Fitzhugh built the first salt-block in 1862, 
while similar industries were located by the Hu- 
ron Company, Johnson & Walsh and Hill & 
Son. Laderach Brothers started their hoop and 
stave mill in 1861. Stone's mill was built in 
1865, and in 1866 cut 2,500,000 feet of lum- 
ber. Jacob Laderach and M. A. and A. H. 
Root operated shingle-mills. M. A. Root i^ 
still an honored resident cf the East Side. John 
Arnold & Company, and the Huron Company 
operated sawmills. 

In 1868 the property of the Huron Com- 
pany was secured by John W. Babcock, one of 
the most interesting figures in our pioneer an- 
nals. Born in New York in 1831, his family 
came to Washtenaw, Michigan, in 1835. In 
1 85 1 he determined to try his fortune in the 
wilderness, and with nothing but a compass 
for his guide started for Bay City. He camped 
out alone in the dense forest three nights out of 
five; the other two were spent with settlers in 



lone cabins he chanced to pass. He camped one 
night with Indians upon the site of future Salz- 
burg, and concluded that it was a good place 
to live. But for the time being there was noth- 
ing there for him to do. He helped to clear a 
number of farms in that vicinity, for the late 
James Fraser, and assisted in clearing the way 
for Center avenue. He took the contract for 
building a portion of the Tuscola plank road 
in 1858, built the Bay City, AuSable and Dun- 
can State road, 155 miles, 1861-65 and drove 
the first team from the north to Bay City. The 
larger portion of his pay consisted of 72,000 
acres of government land, of which he held a 
portion and sold the scrip for the remainder. 
In 1867 he built the military wagon road from 
Fort Howard in Wisconsin to Fort Wilkins, 
in the Upper Peninsula, over 178 miles, receiv- 
ing three sections of land per mile, a total of 
348,060 acres. During all this time his home 
was in Salzburg. In 1868 he determined to 
purchase the sawmill, salt-block, boarding 
house and tenement houses of the Huron Com- 
pany, valued at over $100,000. He gave 2i3r 
600 acres of his Wisconsin government land 
for this fine property, and traded the remainder 
for improved farm and other property. Al- 
though the hard work of this pioneer in the 
wilderness allowed him but little time for 
school, he was typical of that sterling race of 
self-made business men, equal to every emer- 
gency, and rising to every occasion. Where to- 
day young men rely on a college education for 
a guide through life, these rugged settlers could 
rely only on their own resources, energy and 
diligence. 

By 1868 there were more additions to the 
kettle salt-blocks of Salzburg ; Charles C. Fitz- 
hugh, Tallman & Parmalee, Fisk & Clark and 
the Chicago Company were added to the ham- 
let's enterprises. The post office was estab- 
lished in 1868, stores multiplied, and George 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



183 



Kolb, Sr., wlio came here in 1854, opened the 
first brewer)-, wliich since has grown to large 
proportions. 

In 1875 Wenona made an unsuccessful at- 
tempt to extend her boundaries so as to include 
Salzburg, but not until 1877 did the hamlet be- 
come part of the new city of West Bay City. 
To this day the region lying south of the section 
line, including all of the i6th Ward of Greater 
Bay City, is popularly known and marked on 
railroad maps as "Salzburg." Frederick Neu- 
nian, for more than 24 years justice of the 
peace of the West Side, was born in Salzburg 
in 1857, and is one of the few living residents 
who have seen this thriving suburb grow from 
a few salt-wells and farms to its present pros- 
perous and populous condition. 

Thus we find the West Side finally united. 
Banks has expanded to the south, Salzburg 
has reached out to the north, and Wenona has 
reached out in both directions, until the homes 
and lives of the three villages have become so 
interw'oven that there was really no longer any 
dividing line and the Legislature of 1877 m^de 
one community on the west bank of the river. 

The same forces w'ere at work during all 
these years on the East Side, and by 1873 there 
w"as really no longer a dividing line between 
Bay City and Portsmouth, and by act of the 
Legislature the village of Portsmouth, now the 
Sixth and Seventh wards of Bay City, ceased 
its corporate existence, and became an integral 
part of the busy city, then extending almost 
from the mouth of the river for five miles 
south along the river bank. 

The extension of the Michigan Central 
Railroad, due north from Bay City to the 
Straits of Mackinac, opened new fields of trade 
and commerce, and made the two Bay Cities a 
most important railroad center. As early as 
1880 the Chamber of Commerce made an ef- 
fort to bring the mineral wealth of the Upper 
10 



Peninsula to Bay City, for the forge and smel- 
ter. Had the copper and iron interests know^n 
the unlimited coal supply lying only 150 feet 
below the surface, there is no doubt but that 
the natural advantages for these great indus- 
tries would have been complete, and that Bay 
City would have become the "Pittsburg of the 
Northwest." But strangely enough all the bor- 
ing for salt-wells went obliviously through 
these veins of coal, and no one took the trouble 
to bore especially for coal, and hence the ore 
from the Upper Peninsula passed down Lake 
Huron, past its natural harbor on Saginaw Bay, 
to Ohio and Pennsylvania ports, where coal 
was plenty. Bay City was too busy sawing 
lumber and making salt, to bother about other 
and more permanent industries. How many 
times since then, the older business men have 
regretted the opportunities thus missed. How 
much better it would have been for Bay City, 
East and West Side, if some of the lumber here 
produced had been turned into the manu- 
factured article, thus giving us the varied in- 
terests, which later were so sadly missed. Even 
so the Bay Cities were just cresting the tidal 
wave of the lumber boom when these first con- 
solidations gave them rank with the good cities 
of the State and country. 

West Bay City's business center was on 
Alidland and Linn streets, the Sage, Babo, Ap- 
lin, Allard, Campbell, Moots and Bank blocks 
giving the young city a substantial trade mark. 
South of the Sage mill were the railroad docks, 
then came the large shipyard owned and oper- 
ated, then as now, by Capt. James Davidson. 
North of the Sage mill was the Ballentine ship- 
yard, the gypsum factory of Smith, Bullard ,& 
Company (whose gypsum supply came from 
Alabaster, Michigan), and the Litchfield saw- 
mill. 

A little idea of the increasing importance of 
the West Side as a business center may be 



i8,i 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



gained by two leaves from the West Side post 
office receipts. When Henry H. Alpin became 
postmaster of Wenona in 1869, there were 38 
mail boxes; by 1883 there were 1,089, ^'""^ the 
annual receipts had increased from $800 to 
nearly $9,000. 

Churches and schools multiplied rapidly to 
meet the constantly increasing demand, and the 
flimsy buildings of the frontier settlement were 
gradually replaced by more substantial and im- 
posing structures. 

Chief among the new buildings of 1883 
was the Sage Library, built and equipped by 
Henry \V. Sage, who made much of his im- 
mense fortune in the "Big Mill" on the West 
Side. Aside from a few public parks, this is 
the only large public benefaction ever left either 
of the Bay Cities, and cost something like 
$50,000. Many fortunes were made here, but 
this library alone remains to show, that at least 
one of the rich lumbermen cared something for 
posterity, and desired to be honored and re- 
membered amid the scenes of his business suc- 
cess and life's work. This lack of public spirit 
on the part of the men and families who ac- 
cumulated millions of dollars, when they 
sheared the valley of its timber supply, has for 
years been keenly felt and deplored by these 
communities. Would that the Bay Cities had 
found among their pioneer lumbermen more 
public spirit and more loyalty to the towns ! 
Would that among that long list of millionaire 
lumbermen whose fortunes were made through 
the superior advantages of the Bay Cities, there 
had been at least one more Henry W. Sage. 

After the consolidation of the West Side 
villages in 1877, things moved swiftly for the 
public good. In 1882 the Holly water-works 
plant was begun, arid operated until 1902, when 
the new and modern pumping station was erect- 
ed on the beautiful and historic shores of the 
Kawkawlin, with the intake pipe extending 



well into the clear water of the bay off Tobico. 
By that fine engineering feat the West Side 
has solved its own water supply problem for 
many years to come, and the East Side may now 
profit by the foresight and good judgment of 
the West Side. That new station is planned to 
supply a population of 75,000. 

In 1869 the fire steamer "Defiance" was pur- 
chased, with S. A. Plummer as chief, and a 
company of volunteers. This proved unsatis- 
factory, so a paid department was organized, 
and after the union of the three villages each 
ward was given one hose company, the three, 
with the steamer, comprising the department 
over there until 1905. John Charters was the 
first city fire chief, and Lafayette Roundsville, 
the first engineer. 

West Bay City had 3,000 people in 1877, 
and by 1883 had increased to over 8,000. The 
Federal census of 1890 showed a population 
of 12,981, and that of 1900 marked a slight in- 
crease, despite the fact that the West Side suf- 
fered, along with the entire valley, from the 
closing down of many sawmills, by giving the 
West Side 13,119 people. The new city laid 
many miles of cedar block pavement, estab- 
lished an electric light plant, began an excel- 
lent sewer system, and laid thousands of feet 
of sidewalks. The long stretch of river front 
makes the building of roads and sidewalks an 
expensive detail of municipal affairs, for there 
is still much vacant property within the wide 
reaches of the corporate limits. The heavy 
bonded indebtedness of the West Side in 1904 
is largely due to this fact, and it nearly caused 
the defeat of consolidation, for the East Side is 
better situated in this respect and hence has less 
indebtedness. 

By the union of Portsmouth in 1873, the 
East Side became one solid and substantial city. 
In 1865 when the city was first organized, the 
limits were the Saginaw River on the west and 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



l8: 



nortli, Madison avenue on tlie east and Colum- 
bus avenue on the south. By 1873 these Hmits 
had expanded to reach from Cass avenue on the 
south to Essexville on the north, and from the 
river to Trumbull street on the east. 

The bulk of the business was still being 
done along Water street on the river front, but 
in the last 10 years a gradual change has come 
o\er the city. Center and Washington avenues 
are becoming the most popular locations for 
the retail trade, while Water street is becoming 
the wholesale and distributing center of Greater 
Bay City. No street in the country is better 
situated for manufacturing institutions or 
warehouses than Water street. Just 300 feet 
west is the deep-water channel of the river, 
wliich in the wholesale district is lined with 
w arehouses and docks. 

In 1864 the Bay City Council had granted 
a street car franchise to a syndicate of Milan, 
Ohio, capitalists. In February, 1865, the first 
board of directors of the Bay City & Ports- 
mouth Street Railway Company was elected as 
follows : James Eraser, Nathan B. Bradley, 
William ]\IcEwan, Myron Butman and George 
Campbell. During 1865 William McEwan 
superintended the construction of the track 
along Water street from Third to 35th street, 
on which horse cars began running in Novem- 
ber, 1S65. In 1874 a new syndicate took over 
the street car system and extended the track to 
McGraw's mammoth mill on the south and to 
Essexville on the north. A light T-rail was 
laid, over which railroad cars could be moved, 
and the foundation laid for the splendid belt 
line system which now circles down the river 
front and around the entire city a belt of steel 
that provides fine factory sites, ready means of 
transportation, and an easy interchange of traf- 
fic and cars between the several roads entering 
Bav Citv. At first the street cars used these 



tracks in the daytime, while the switching was 
done by the railroads at night. 

When electricity replaced the horses, the 
lines of track were much changed. From the 
"Y" at Essexville the trolley line follows 
Woodside avenue to Sherman, to First, to 
Washington, to Columbus, to Garfield, to La- 
fayette, to Cass, to Harrison, a distance of five 
miles, and touching from north to south the 
principal business streets. A loop is made 
around the business district, on Water from 
Third to Center, to Washington, to Third, and 
west across the Third street bridge to the heart 
of the West Side. The Center avenue line ex- 
tends from Water east to the city limits, where 
another "Y" furnishes an easy mode of usin£ 
the double tracks, which are laid on Center and 
Washington avenues on the East Side, and on 
Midland and Henry, on the West Side. An- 
other branch line extends on Columbus avenue 
from Garfield to the Tuscola stone road. The 
West Side lines run from Midland south, down 
Center street to the State road in Salzburg, 
north on Henry to South Union, to Washing- 
ton, to Banks, and Wenona Beach, six miles 
from the Court House. The street car service 
is excellent, the equipment is modern and well- 
handled in every respect, and really years in ad- 
vance of other features of municipal con\-en- 
ience. The interurban electric line to Saginaw 
and Detroit enters the city over a fine bridge 
south of the North American Chemical Com- 
pany's plant, and carries freight as well as pas- 
sengers. An immense power house was erected 
in 1903 on Water street near loth streets, 
which will meet all electric power requirements 
for years to come for both lines. 

When the street car system gave up the 
Water street tracks, they were used exclusively 
for handling freight, and a number of the saw- 
mills on that belt line depend entirely upon 



1 86 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



their log supply by rail. This is clue to the fact, 
that the logging" camps are now so far in the 
interior, that it is cheaper to build branch rail- 
roads into the heart of the hardwood timber belt 
to the north, than to transport the logs to rivers 
to be rafted down to Lake Huron and thence 
to the Saginaw River. Hence the railroad traf- 
fic has increased annually, while the river tratTlc 
has fallen off. 

This belt line passed the big McGraw mill 
at the foot of 40th street, then the largest mill 
in the world ! The official chronicler of the 
centennial year, 1876, tells us that the mill had 
cut more than 800,000 feet of lumber in a single 
day, and that the average cut per day was 
worth $11,000 at the prevailing prices of lum- 
ber, and the big Sage mill on the West Side, 
with recent additions, was then but little behind 
this record. By 1876 the local log supply had 
been exhausted, and logs were being rafted 
from the Tittabawassee and Cass rivers to the 
south, and from the streams on Saginaw Bay 
to the north. 

The city was well supplied with boiler and 
machine shops to supply the needs of the busy 
mills. The East Side then had "jy manufactur- 
ing establishments, employing nearly $5,000,- 
000 in capital, while the rest of the county had 
35 other manufacturing plants, with a capital 
of nearly $2,000,000. On the East Side were 
28 sawmills, with 34 circular and 21 gang 
saws. The lumber manufactured in 1876 was 
worth over $4,000,000, while the lath and 
shingle shipments were worth over $150,000. 
Then there were 27 salt-wells, producing an- 
nually about 400,000 barrels of salt, at $1.40 
per barrel ; 27 planing-mills : three wood-work- 
ing establishments; the Michigan Pipe Com- 
pany's plant : the Bay City woodenware works, 
which has since expanded, and is in 1905 the 
largest and best equipped in the world ; five 
machine shops, including the Industrial Works, 



which has steadily grown to its present size; 
and two grist-mills. 

The chronicler with the eyes of a seer pre- 
dicted the building of a railroad north, skirting 
Lake Huron, since verified by the completion 
of the Detroit & Mackinac Railroad as far as 
Cheboygan in 1904, and still reaching north. 
His prediction of a road east to the "Thumb" 
of Michigan is to be verified in 1905 by the 
building of the Bay City & Port Huron Rail- 
way, via Caro and Cass City. 

The farms adjacent to Bay City were stead- 
ily increasing in numbers and resources, al- 
though the agricultural interests of our subur- 
ban townships were still in their infancy 30 
years ago. 

The business blocks and public buildings 
in 1876 were far and away ahead of those of 
other and less progressive cities of the country. 
The four-story Westover Opera House Block 
then contained the State Bank, Bancroft & 
Company's dry goods store and many offices. 
The theater was pronounced at that time one of 
the most commodious and modern in Michigan. 
Fire w-iped it out some years later, and a larger 
and handsomer office building, the Phoenix 
Block, has risen from the ashes. The old opera 
house was replaced by a new theater, on Sixth 
street and Washington avenue. In 1903 the in- 
terior of Wood's Opera House was gutted, in 
one of the fiercest conflagrations that ever vis- 
ited this city. Eugene Zaremba was killed by 
falling brick. Within a few months this loss 
was straightened out with the insurance com- 
panies, and the Washington Theater has arisen 
in its place, more beautiful and artistic than be- 
fore. 

The Arlington on the West Side, the mas- 
sive four-story Fraser, the three-story Forest 
City, the Campbell, the three-story Astor and 
the three-story Rouech on the East Side were 
then, as now, popular and up-to-date hotels. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



187 



witli many smaller hostelries in both cities. The 
New Republic House, built since then, de- 
stroyed by fire in 1901, has been entirely re- 
built, and a large addition in 1904 makes it 
one of the largest and most modern hotels in 
the State, while the Oriental on Jefferson ave- 
nue, built in 1904, is a pretty and unique addi- 
tion to the city's public buildings and hostelries. 
The old Welverton and Globe hotels are still 
standing. The city had many substantial busi- 
ness blocks 20 years ago, of which the follow- 
ing are still standing in 1905 : The Cranage 
Bank, Cottrell, Hine, Munger, Union, Watson, 
Averell, IMcCormick, McEwan, Jennison, Bir- 
ney, and two Shearer Park blocks. Among the 
notable additions to these business blocks in re- 
cent years are the Crapo, Ridotto, Hawley, 
Rosenbury, Norrington, Baumgarten, Beck, 
Commercial, Central, Concordia, Eddy, Elks', 
Fay, Griswold, Harmon & Vernor, Hurley, 
McDermott, Maxwell, Moran, Kaiser, New 
Griswold, New McEwan, Obey Pacaud, 
Plumsteel, Root, Simon, Stewart, Taylor, 
Tierney, Van Emster, Warren, Washing- 
ton, Heumann and New Hurley Blocks. 
The fact that none of these many blocks 
are lying idle indicates the business act- 
ivity of the East Side. Some of the older 
blocks, in locations somewhat off the modern 
trend of business affairs in the city, are in use 
simply for the lack of better and more desir- 
able locations and more modern buildings. 
Cottage Hall on Madison avenue. Trades 
Council Hall on Water street, Moran Hall on 
Harrison street, and the Bay Theater Hall (on 
the West Side) are more recent additions to 
the public buildings of Greater Bay City. The 
Elks' Hall, facing Center Avenue Park on the 
southwest, and the magnificent new home of 
the Bay City Club fronting the same park on 
the northwest, are the two most noteworthy ad- 
<litions to the citv's architecture and social life 



in 1904. The Bcrtch Block on Washington 
avenue and the Gustin, Cook & Buckley Block, 
at the foot of Washington avenue, are the last 
and very substantial additions to the city's per- 
manent buildings. 

The business directory of Bay City for 
1885, just 20 years ago, is as enthusiastic about 
the prospects and progress of this city, as the 
earlier local chronicler. Some of the blocks 
here enumerated were built during this year, 
and in addition many smaller business places 
and many handsome residences. It was esti- 
mated that nearly $400,000 was spent for such 
improvements during that year. The assessed 
valuation was $7,722,310, which was probably 
not much more than half of the real value. In 
that year the 32 mills in both cities cut over five 
million feet of lumber, together with 52 million 
shingles, and 13.399 car-loads of salt were 
shipped during one year. The Pere Marquette 
handled nearly 79 million pounds of exports, 
and nearly 36 million pounds of imports; the 
Michigan Central shipped over 76 million 
pounds of exports, and almost 32 million 
pounds of imports. Since that time the latter 
road has made Bay City the center of its mam- 
moth business north of Detroit. A beautiful 
passenger depot graces the terminal at the foot 
of Jackson street, with an immense freight de- 
pot at the foot of First street. On the West 
Side are miles of side-tracks in the freight 
yards, with a large, modern roundhouse, and 
pretty passenger station just below the Wash- 
ington viaduct, the latter built jointly by the 
West Side and the railroad company. 

In 1885 there were seven wards on the East 
Side, each having two aldermen. The city re- 
corder drew $1,300, with $1,000 bonds; the 
city treasurer, $1,400, with $150,000 bonds for 
the city, $60,000 bonds for the School Board, 
and $50,000 bonds for the county ; the comp- 
troller, $1,400, with $10,000 bonds. The alder- 



i8S 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



men appointed the city attorney, with $600 sal- 
arj' per annum ; city surveyor, $3.75 per day ; 
street commissioner, $2.50 per day, and poor 
director, $425 per annum. The Board of 
Education looked after the schools, then 
as now the Board of Water Works 
looked after the city's water supply and 
the Police Department was managed by 
the mayor and four police commissioners, 
with Nathaniel N. Murphy, as chief. This 
veteran in 1905 manages the police force of the 
united cities with the office of superintendent. 
The Fire Department was managed by a Coun- 
cil committee, with Robert J. Campbell as chief 
engineer, with hose companies in the First, 
Second, Fourth and Seventh wards and the 
hook and ladder truck in the Fourth Ward, the 
center of the city. There were 35 fire-alarm 
boxes. But one disastrous fire has in all these 
20 years gotten beyond their control, the ter- 
rible South End fire of 1893, which wiped out 
all the mills, stores and homes from the river to 
Jennison, and from 28th to 32nd streets. Judge 
Sanford M. Green presided over the Circuit 
Court. The immense local salt output required 
three salt inspectors ; William R. McCormick, 
the esteemed pioneer; Charles H. Malone and 
W. R. Wands, the last named still living on the 
East Side. The city had three banks, — the Bay 
City, First National and Second National 
banks. The Bay City Bank (incorporated 
July 19, 1 87 1, with $100,000 capital, had 
George Lewis as its president. George H. 
Young, the cashier in 1885, is the present presi- 
dent of this bank, with capital increased to 
$50,000. The First National Bank, incor- 
porated in 1864, capital and surplus in 1885, 
$200,000, had these officers : James Shearer, 
president ; Hon. Nathan B. Bradley, vice-presi- 
dent; B. E. Warren, cashier; F. P. Browne, 
assistant cashier. In 1905 we find Mr. Browne 
still cashier of this institution, Charles A. Eddy 



is president and F. T. Norris vice-president. 
The Second National Bank (incorporated in 
May, 1864, had capital and surplus amounting 
to $140,000 in 1885; the following were the 
officers. William Westover, president : A. 
Chesbrough, vice-president ; Orrin Bump, cash- 
ier; and Martin M. Andrews, assistant cash- 
ier. Mr. Bump became president when the 
bank was reorganized as the Old Second Na- 
tional Bank, and so continued until ill health 
compelled him to retire in 1903. Air. Andrews 
is the present cashier; James E. Davidson, 
president ; and Frank T. Woodworth, vice- 
president. The Commercial Bank with a cap- 
ital of $100,000 has been organized since then, 
as has the Bay County Savings Bank with a 
capital of $50,000. John Mulholland, cashier. 

A ferry line connected Banks, Bay City and 
Salzburg, the "Hattie Brown," "Hubbard" 
and "H. C. Hull" taking care of the passengers. 
The electric cars have long since replaced the 
river craft. There were steamer lines running 
regularly to Saginaw, to Oscoda and Alpena, 
Caseville and Sebewaing, Detroit and Buf- 
falo, Toledo and Cleveland. A dozen har- 
bor tugs handled the logs and tow 
barges in the river. The railroads and 
changing fortunes of the cities have long 
since driven most of these river and lake 
craft to more congenial ports. Telegraph and 
telephone companies came early to this thriving 
lumber town, and in 1905 Bay City has two 
excellent telephone systems, reaching every part 
of the State and country, and two telegraph 
companies, with similar connections, all over 
the globe. 

About 1885 the government was made to 
see the importance of Bay City as a port of 
entry, and through Hon. Spencer O. Fisher, 
ably assisted by Hon. H. H. Aplin, the hand- 
some and commodious Federal Building was 
secured on Washington avenue, the square in- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



189 



eluding Fourth avenue and Adams and Tliird 
streets. Here is the post office, internal revenue 
office, customs office, and office and court room 
of the United States District Court for Eastern 
Michigan. 

Bay City has long enjoyed several pretty 
public breathing places. Carroll Park, on the 
eastern city limits, with its casino and primeval 
forest kings, with modern landscape gardening, 
is a beautiful place for recreation and a quiet 
hour. Less pretentious but equally shady are 
Madison Park, Washington Park, Central Park 
and Broadway Park, while the Oak Grove on 
the East Side, Wenona, Oa-at-ka and Reserva- 
tion beaches on the West Side are ideal resorts 
and camping grounds on Saginaw Bay. Wen- 
ona Beach is the "Coney Island of the Lakes." 
An immense casino, with continuous vaudeville 
performances all season, with boating, bathing, 
dancing, and all the other attractions that go to 
cheer the heated term of summer, are here with- 
in the reach of every one, the car fare for the 
round trip of 12 miles being but 15 cents. It 
is the delight of the people who cannot afford 
the time or expense of visiting more expensive, 
even if not more attractive, summer resorts on 
distant shores. 

Six public schools, and the High School, 
together with a number of good parochial 
schools, furnished the educational facilities of 
Bay City 20 years ago. The old High School 
is today the Farragut School, and the increas- 
ing population has made necessary the hand- 
some Washington School of the nth Ward, 
the equally attractive Lincoln school of the 
Eighth Ward, and the Woodside School, a 
frame building destroyed by fire in March, 
1905. The new High School, on Madison ave- 
nue and nth and Jefferson streets, was expect- 
ed to answer all purposes for many decades. 
But despite many additions this building is 
again crowded to the limit, and with the ad- 



mission of the West Side scholars a new build- 
ing will be at once imperative. 

The city's first cemetery was located on 
what are now Columbus avenue and Saginaw 
street, which in 1845 was away out in the wil- 
derness. Potter's field was on nth street and 
Washington avenue, and excavations in both 
these vicinities to this day bring to light many 
skeletons of early pioneers, whose last resting 
places had become obliterated in the ruthless 
course of events. Since then the West Side has 
created a beautiful city of the dead in the Oak 
Ridge Cemetery on State street and the Kaw- 
kawlin stone road; the East Side, in the Pine 
Ridge, Eickemeyer and St. Patrick's cemeter- 
ies. The latest addition is the Elm Lawn Cem- 
etery, planned and laid out by local capitalists 
on Columbus avenue, from Park to Li\-ingstone 
avenues. Its shady nooks, well-kept lawns, and 
artistic landscape gardening, with a massive 
stone entrance arch, and office, with a large 
stone vault for public use, ivy grown and on a 
central elevation, with a number of costly pri- 
vate mausoleums and vaults and many artistic 
monuments, combine to make Elm Lawn one 
of the most beautiful, as well as most extensive 
and modern of the last resting places for our 
beloved departed. 

In 1904 the East Side had expanded to 11 
wards, the West Side to six wards. On the 
East Side the management of municipal affairs 
had been consigned by the Council largely 
to municipal boards appointed by the 
aldermen. The public lighting plant was 
in charge of the Board of Electric Control. The 
water-works system was in charge of the Board 
of Water Works. In 1872 the people voted to 
issue bonds to the amount of $327,000, for es- 
tablishing the Holly water-works system, and 
the only fault the citizens have to find with that 
action was the lack of provision to pay oft' the 
indebtedness so incurred. In 1905 the city still 



1 90 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



continues to pay the very higli rate of interest 
in vogue 30 years ago, and it is estimated that 
the original cost of the plant has been largely 
paid by the city in interest on the debt, without 
reducing that indebtedness itself. The intake 
pipe was placed near Oak Grove, but was not 
extended far enough into the bay, so that with 
the gradually receding waters of the lakes, the 
supply of late years has suflfered, much river 
water being pumped to make up the deficiency. 
The consolidated cities will have to solve the 
East Side water problem at no distant day, and 
it is hoped the large and modern water-works 
plant on the Kawkawlin, owned and operated 
by the West Side, can be made to supply both 
sides of the river. The old system on the East 
Side was built under the supervision of Andrew 
Walton, William Westover, William Smalley, 
H. M. Bradley, Andrew Miller. Thomas H. 
McGraw and Thomas Cranage, the last named 
being still in active business on the East Side. 
The first secretary of the board, E. L. Dunbar, 
has an enviable record for public service, for in 
1905 he is still the efficient head of this depart- 
ment, which has during the last 33 years laid 
many miles of water mains, only recently re- 
placing the worn-out wooden pipes with iron 
mains and has ever given ample fire protection 
to the city and a cheap water supply to private 
and commercial consumers. Bay City's water 
system has been a model for many cities in the 
country, and one of the best managed of our 
city departments. The city's sewer system has 
been excellent from the first, the slope back 
from the river being just sufficient to provide 
the necessary drop, and the ample water supply 
and swift running current of the river have 
done good service. The sidewalks of plank 
are in 1905 giving way to permanent cement 
walks, which cost but little more than the now 
costly lumber, are much more durable and will 
save the city thousands of dollars in losses 



through damage cases arising from defective 
wooden sidewalks. 

When Bay City and Bay County were in the 
midst of an unlimited log and lumber supply, 
the roadways were covered with planks or cedar 
blocks, even the central country roads being 
covered with thousands of feet of plank, that 
at going prices in 1905 would represent a very 
large municipal fortune. In recent years both 
sides of the river have supplanted the cedar 
blocks with paving bricks, asphalt and bitum- 
inous macadam road surfaces, on permanent 
crushed stone and cement foundations. While 
somewhat more costly in the first instance, they 
assure the city permanent and modern road- 
w'ays for all time. 

The increasing cost of lumber has made 
brick and cement the preferred materials for 
modern residences and business places, and 
many such buildings are in course of erection 
in 1905. Holy Rosary Academy on Lincoln 
avenue, the parochial residences of St. Boniface 
and St. James churches, and the new Pere Mar- 
(|uette Station, finished in 1904, are samples of 
this new style of architecture. 

Bay City has undergone many changes in 
its 40 years of municipal existence, not the least 
being the gradual disappearance of the small, 
crude shacks, that housed the early pioneers, 
and were the result of the city's mushroom 
growth during the boom of the lumber indus- 
try. Slowdy but surely these flimsy structures 
have given way to more modern and more sub- 
stantial business places, factories and homes, so 
that the sons of early Bay City, who wandered 
from their native heath, can but wonder at the 
changes for the better in evidence on every 
hand, when they come back to the city of their 
birth and youth. 

The new St. Boniface Church, the magnifi- 
cent new St. Stanislaus Church, the present First 
Presbyterian Church, the New Trinity Protest- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



191 



ant Episcopal Church, and the First Methodist 
Episcopal, Broadway Baptist, Patterson Me- 
morial, Salem Evangelical, Zioii Evangelical, 
Immanuel German Lutheran, Central Method- 
ist Episcopal, Trinity German Lutheran, Fre- 
mont Methodist Episcopal and South Baptist 
churches on the East Side, and the First Bap- 
tist, l*"irst Methodist Episcopal, Westminster 
Presbyterian, Notre Dame, St. Mary's German 
Lutheran, and the Tabernacle on the West Side 
are among the modern houses of worship, that 
have within the last 20 years replaced their 
primitive predecessors. 

No less advantageous to the city is the com- 
parison of the original public school buildings 
with the present roomy, handsome and substan- 
tial structures, where the youth of the city are 
being taught by a most competent staff of 
teachers. The old wooden school on Adams 
street is today a carriage factory, while the 
handsome Dolsen School has taken its place on 
Sherman street and Fourth avenue. The little 
school on First and Washington, the first in the 
city, has been replaced with the modern Sher- 
man School on Woodside avenue and Sherman 
street. Farragut School has lately been remod- 
eled. The Garfield School on Eraser and 22nd 
streets has received a large addition, making it 
one of the most modern and commodious in the 
city. An adtlition will this very summer have 
to be Iniilt to the Fremont School, which took 
the place of a wooden structure destroyed by 
the great fire. On the West Side, St. Mary's 
Parochial School is a late addition. The Kolb 
School is a new and large brick structure, and 
another new school has just been completed on 
Center and Thomas streets. 

The East Side Fire Department Headquar- 
ters on Washington avenue are being remodeled 
in 1905: The Chemical No. i, and one hose 
company are stationed here, while an even more 
pretentious brick hose house on Washington 



and Columbus avenues contains the ladder 
truck and one ho.se company. Other modern 
fire-fighting models are the Fifth Ward Hose 
House on Lafayette avenue, and the i ith Ward 
Hose House on Johnson street, where a combi- 
nation chemical and hose cart is housed. The 
First and Seventh ward companies also have 
roomy and well-equipped homes. Tlie West 
Side Fire Department is not so well housed, 
and its three companies have a vast territory 
to cover, but both departments have an excel- 
lent record for efficiency. 

In the palmy days of the lumber industry 
the danger of disastrous fires was very great 
and, on innumerable occasions, prompt and he- 
roic work by the fire laddies has saved millions 
of dollars worth of property. As more sub- 
stantial structures replace the old flimsy build- 
ings, which were mere food for fire, the chances 
for injury at the hands of the fire demon are 
being lessened, and the Fire Department of Bay 
City, East Side, as now constituted will meet 
all requirements for many years to come. The 
alarm system is the very latest and has proven 
absolutely rapid and reliable. The fire-fighting 
apparatus is the very latest obtainable, and un- 
der the veteran fire chief, Thomas K. Harding, 
who for more than 20 years has been at the 
head of this department, after serving before 
that in subordinate capacities, the fire demon 
finds his master on every occasion, when he ap- 
plies his flaming torch. The loss from fire 
during the year 1904 was trival. compared to 
that of earlier years. 

Equally marked has been the change in the 
population and police comparisons. In the pio- 
neer days the frontier ruftians and intoxicated 
Indians were the dread of the peace-loving set- 
tlers. As the red men Ijecame less numerous, 
a rough and ready class of seafaring sailors 
joined forces with the adventurous lumber 
jacks. Circuit Judge Shepard only recently re- 



19:2 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



called the fact, that less than 30 j-ears ago it was 
a risky thing to visit the Third street bridge or 
the Water street resort district, unarmed and 
unattended! Murders, assaults, hold-ups and 
free for all fights were the rule, rather than the 
exception ! The Good Templars did their best 
to overcome these evils by a concerted campaign 
against the rum evil of those days, but quite in- 
effectually. C. C. Chilson was one of their 
most earnest leaders, and more than once he 
was assaulted by saloon rowdies, and on at 
least one occasion was shot at and nearly killed 
by a drunken ruffian, who thought to avenge 
Chilson's anti-saloon work. The writer was a 
newsboy in 1883-85, and he well recalls the 
riotous life among the lumbermen even at that 
late day. Prize fights were the daily attraction 
at some of the Third street resorts. Gaudy 
women catered to the thirsty in other resorts, 
or sang and danced on rough board stages, 
while below them on rough board floors, cov- 
ered thick with sawdust to absorb the tobacco 
juice and on occasion the blood of the brawlers, 
a mixed array of rough men and equally coarse 
women caroused and careened. Going down 
Third street on any afternoon, evening, night or 
early morning, one could hear the shrill music 
of the fiddle or bag-pipe, the melodeon and ac- 
cordion, while spiked feet danced in such uni- 
son as their maudlin drunk owners could com- 
mand on the floor cleared for the time being of 
chairs and crude benches, such as comprised the 
typical music hall or saloon furniture. To the 
credit of those tough and rough lumber jacks I 
want to say, that although they could easily 
tell by my broken English my foreign birth, 
they seldom spoke harshly to me, and then usu- 
ally liquor had mastered their finer sensibilities. 
Not once during those years of the sailor and 
the frontiersman, do I recall being molested in 
my calling as newsboy. Certainly not one of 
those coarse hands ever was raised to strike the 



busy newsboy. On the other hand I often se- 
cured some large coin for the Ez'cniiig Press, 
with the curt admonition, "never mind the 
change," and however crude or coarse may have 
been their revels, there went home from them a 
little lad, happy because of their generous 
hearts, and because their generosity was sure 
to make other hearts lighter ! With the passing 
of the lumber industry these lumber jacks have 
gone across the border to Canada, where Bay 
City lumbermen in the year 1905 find them just 
as hardy, and industrious, but also just as riot- 
ous and boisterous as they were in their palmy 
days in Bay City. During those early years the 
life of the policeman was ever in danger, and 
more than one fell at the post of duty, while 
others were maimed and injured while trying 
to maintain peace and order in the tough dis- 
trict. 

Other and better days have come for our 
trusty officers of the law. In the ranks today 
are some of the veterans of those trying times. 
Supt. Nathaniel N. Murphy, Capt. Mathew 
Ryan, Sergt. George A. Hemstreet ; Samuel E. 
Catlin, William E. Toles, John W. Mulholland, 
George Traub, Joseph Ratcliff, patrolmen ; Ex- 
Capt. William Simmons, Henry Houck, con- 
stable and Ex-Capt. Andrew D. Wyman, now 
special officer on the Detroit & Mackinac Rail- 
way, were on the department during the years 
of transition, and the oldest among them took 
part in many of the stirring dramas enacted in 
the tenderloin district of the lumber town. The 
force to-day has a national reputation for effi- 
ciency and many crooks of national notoriety 
have wandered thus far but no farther ! Tramps 
and wandering pilferers shun this city like the 
plague, and the main duties of the policemen 
are now directed into more peaceful but none 
the less useful channels. The truant officer, 
health officer, tax collector, and the various 
city departments find their readiest assistants 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



193 



among the blue-coated guardians of the peace. 
This department, too, has reached a stage of 
development and efficiency that will require no 
addition in numbers or expense for many years 
to come. 

Just as 20 and 30 and even 40 years ago, 
the citizens of these communities prided them- 
selves upon the efficiency of their several muni- 
cipal departments, in their varying stages of 
progress and development, so in this later year, 
1905, we have every reason to feel proud of our 
departments of learning and culture, of public 
water and lighting service, of the transporta- 
tion, telephone and telegraph service, of the 
public health and judicial departments, of our 
lire fighters and peace guardians ! It has been 
said time without number, and as often demon- 
strated by facts and figures, that no community 
of equal size in this or any other country is 
more healthy, more peaceful, or has more of 
the comforts and conveniences of municipal 
life, than these very same twin communities, 
united forever by the vote of their people in 
1903, and by the joint election on April 3, 1905, 
made the fourth city of Michigan, Greater Bay 
City. Time and space forbid following the tide 
of events in the expanding metropolis of North- 
ern Michigan ; a fleeting review brought up to 
date must suffice. 

In 1890 the lumber and salt industries of 
Bay City, were at the zenith of their develop- 
ment. The cities prospered and grew, and the 
rural districts were rapidly being settled. The 
market gardeners found no trouble in disposing 
of all they could raise, and money seemed 
plenty. But dark clouds loomed up on the hori- 
zon. The tariff tinkering at Washington, fol- 
lowing some fickle work at the polls of the 
voters, who apparently wavered for a time on 
both the tariff and the money questions, caused 
one of those periodical and yet almost inex- 
plicable financial depressions or panics, such as 



had passed twice over the destinies of Bay 
County, leaving manufacturers and merchants 
bankrupt and many happy homes on the verge 
of ruin. At the very time that hundreds of 
residents of Bay County enjoyed the feast of 
arts, of science and culture, at the Columbian 
Exposition at Chicago, this new peril began to 
sweep the country from ocean to ocean, and this 
booming lumber community was not long in 
feeling the effects. There was little or no de- 
mand for the finished product and at the same 
time the log supply was becoming more and 
more distant, and hence more expensive. 

Just as this depression in the business af- 
fairs of our country gave way to a general re- 
vival, and the lumber industry on the shores of 
the Saginaw River and Lake Huron was look- 
ing forward to better things, the wiseacres at 
Washington dealt the industry its death blow, 
by passing the bill making the duty on lumber 
from Canada $2, or just twice what the experi- 
enced lumbermen insisted it should be. Retalia- 
tion was both speedy and fatal. The Canadian 
log supply was cut off by a prohibitory export 
duty on boom sticks and logs. One after an- 
other, the great mills along the river shut down, 
most of them never to open again. The Eddy 
mills were dismantled and the valuable machin- 
ery removed to Canada. The Georgian Bay re- 
gion was the Mecca for Michigan's lumbermen. 
There they bought up every available tract of 
timber and erected the mills that were driven 
from their native land by the misguided wis- 
dom of Congress. 

Lumbermen in other portions of the coun- 
try amassed fortunes by the results of the very 
same law that killed the lumber industry in 
Eastern Michigan. This fact has led many of 
the sufferers to attribute the $2 tariff to sinister 
motives, and their own ruin to the greed of 
other sections of the country. The ]Michigan 
lumbermen insist that the lumber industrv in 



194 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



other sections of the country could have been 
benefitted, without sacrificing the mills and the 
entire industry along the Canadian border. But 
regrets and vituperation alike were vain. 

The lumber industry under the new con- 
ditions was driven across the border to Canada, 
and the salt industry could not be continued 
with profit without this auxiliary. The salt- 
blocks had used the exhaust steam from the 
sawmill engines, and the waste wood and saw- 
dust provided a cheap fuel for the operation of 
the engines in the salt-wells. Only a few of 
these salt-wells continued to operate after the 
sawmills shut down, more especially since the 
price of salt steadily declined for some years. 
The idle sawmills were easy prey for the fire 
demon. In most of these mill fires the depart- 
ment could do no more than save surrounding 
property. One by one the old hives of industry 
were wiped out. The mammoth McGraw mill 
was one of the first to go up in smoke. The 
Sage mill on the West Side is one of the few 
that has stood idle during all these years, and 
whose empty framework yet remains, a silent 
reminder of the days when Pine was King in 
the valley. 

\'erily a wonderful change has come over 
Bay City in the past lo years. The one fixed 
idea of all the valley lumbermen, in the days 
when the forests of pine extended to our very 
doors, was to cut them down, and exchange 
them in the markets of the world as quickly as 
possible for what they would bring. Fortunes 
were cjuickly made by those lucky enough to 
own vast tracts of this wealth of pine forest, 
bought from the government for a song. Not 
until these forests were denuded of pine, and 
pine barrens miles in extent marked the destruc- 
tive trail of the axe and saw, did any one stop 
to think that there might be even larger profits 
in the finer manipulation of this timber, and that 
there might possibly be some use for the other 



and neglected timber, such as oak, maple, hem- 
lock, cedar, tamarack, beech, birch, white and 
black ash, elm and bass, of which there were 
still untouched tracts in this vicinity and to the 
north. The cutting oft summarily of our pine 
log supply called attention to these remaining 
possibilities, and the sawmills that are still 
standing ecjuipped along our river front, are all 
kept busy cutting up logs, that in former years 
were entirely ignored by the old-time lumber- 
men. 

This business in hardwood lumber has been 
gradually picking up, and the revival recalls the 
palmy days of long ago. This very year the 
Detroit mill, at the foot of Sherman street, has 
started cutting a log supply that will keep that 
modern mill running for 15 years. Frank 
Buell, formerly of Gaylord, and F. Wyllie of 
Saginaw, are the operators and owners of the 
mill and the log supply. The J. J. Flood mill 
is cutting mahogany timber from South Africa 
for piano manufacturing purposes, and has 
been kept busy with hardwood timber for some 
years. The Campbell-Brown Lumber Com- 
pany, Kneeland-Bigelow Company, F. T. 
Woodworth & Company, !Mershon, Schutte, 
Parker & Company, Samuel G. ]\I. Gates (one 
of the oldest mill-owners still in the business), 
Kern Manufacturing Company, Edward C. 
Hargrave, Hitchcock Lumber Company, Eddy 
Brothers & Company, and E. B. Foss & Com- 
pany are still operating logging camps, saw- 
mills and huge lumber-yards, the last named on 
our river front. 

That the lesson of other years has not been 
entirely lost on our lumber interests is proven 
by the large number of manufacturing insti- 
tutions that work up the raw lumber, instead of 
shipping it to distant points for manufacture. 
The firm of W. D. Young & Company, on the 
West Side, has a world-wide reputation for the 
quality of its finished product, has a mammoth 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



^95 



plant for tlie manufacture of maple flooring 
and is constantly expanding. It furnished the 
lumber for the decks of the last "American 
Cup" defender, the yacht "Reliance" which 
speaks volumes for the firm's position in that 
line of business. Its latest addition is a wood 
alcohol plant, which uses up the sawdust and 
other waste material of the plant. Courval & 
Company in Essexville, E. J. Vance Box Com- 
pany, the Foss mill, [Matthew Lamont, W. H. 
Nickless, Sheldon, Kamm & Company, B. H. 
Briscoe & Company, Bindner Box Company, 
Fred G. Eddy, Bay City Box Company, Lewis 
Manufacturing Company on the East Side and 
Handy Brothers, Beutel Cooperage & Wooden- 
ware Company, Russell Brothers, and Bradley, 
Miller & Company, on the West Side, with 
Bousfield & Company's world-famous wooden- 
ware works on the site of the old McGraw mill 
in the South End, are all employing large 
crews, and producing a finished lumber prod- 
uct that gives the manufacturer the profit that 
formerly went to middlemen in other localities. 

So in 1905 we find tliat the lumber industry 
is actually showing a marked revival. But for 
10 years after the log supply was cut oft', things 
looked gloomy indeed for the cities. In those 
10 years Bay City has made a complete change 
of front, and this united city is today a living 
example of the never-say-die spirit of American 
communities ! From being a mere lumber and 
salt producing center, it has become in six short 
years the hub of the beet sugar business east of 
the Rocky Mountains, and we have within our 
borders to-day as varied and stable industries 
as any city of its size in the country. 

Instead of leaving the dismantled lumber 
town, the people looked about them for new 
avenues of trade and industry. C. B. Chat- 
field, Hon. Nathan B. Bradley, and others be- 
gan some systematic experiments with sugar 
beets, while Alexander Zagelmeyer and others 



investigated the vein of bituminous coal long 
known to have existed in this neighborhood. 
Persistent boring showed that the vein under- 
lies the entire county, at a depth of from 150 to 
300 feet, varying in thickness from four to 
seven feet, and of excellent quality. This 
solved the fuel question, and the opening of 
many mines brought an influx of coal miners 
who took the place of the sawyers and lumber 
jacks who had gone to Canada with the saw- 
mills. 

The farmers proved that both sugar beets 
and chicory roots could be raised here profit- 
ably, the moist climate, with its mild and late 
fall, being ideal for the maturing of these crops. 
A State bounty in 1898 assisted to bring the 
Michigan Sugar Company's plant to comple- 
tion for operation that fall, with a three-months 
supply of beets, and excellent results followed. 
This pioneer sugar factory of Michigan was 
followed the very next year by the still larger 
Bay City Sugar factory, and the West Bay 
City and German-American sugar factories fol- 
lowed the next year. Other factories were 
erected in different parts of the State, and the 
State bounty was at once withdrawn as its fur- 
ther application would have bankrupted the 
State treasury. Since then, millions of pounds 
of the finest granulated sugar have been pro- 
duced annually, giving the Michigan farmer 
another excellent crop for rotation, and mak- 
ing all his other farm crops more valuable, as 
the thousands of acres put into sugar beets re- 
move just that many acres from the market 
competition in other staple farm products. The 
beet pulp, leaves and toppings make good cat- 
tle feed, and at the \ery time when green fod- 
der cannot be secured in this latitude. All the 
mills in Michigan run to their capacity could 
only supply the home demand for sugar, hence 
these factories are assured a certain market for 
their output. Since the American Sugar Refin- 



196 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



ing Company, better known as the Havemeyer 
Sugar Trust, has acquired an interest in two 
of the local factories and also in others through- 
out the State, all competition, which for a time 
threatened to bring on a ruinous rate war, has 
been practically removed. 

Nothing short of the same suicidal tariff 
tinkering, that killed the lumber industry, can 
now cripple this infant beet sugar industry in 
Michigan, which promises to expand, until it 
will supply our entire home consumption. The 
ill-advised Cuban reciprocity treaty proved 
well-nigh fatal to this new farm and factory in- 
dustry. Not a single new sugar factory has 
been built in Michigan since Cuba's cane sugar 
producers have been favored at the expense of 
the American farmers, manufacturers and la- 
borers ! The trust interests alone saved those 
factories already in operation, by keeping the 
price of sugar at a point where it can be pro- 
duced by American labor and home-grown 
sugar beets, at a small profit to the costly sugar 
mills. Hardly had this crisis been passed, when 
the native farmer encountered a poor season, 
owing to adverse weather conditions, and in 
1903 and 1904 none of the Michigan factories 
had as many beets as they needed for a normal 
campaign. The last year proved very favor- 
able for growing beets, the percentage of sugar 
contents being high, and the weight satisfac- 
tory. This is expected to stimulate more exten- 
si\e beet cultivation, and all the factories in 
March, 1905, reported more acreage than they 
had at the same period the year before. 

Several factories were operated at a loss last 
fall, because they did not secure enough beets 
for a profitable campaign. In those localities 
the warning has gone forth, that if the farmers 
do not rally to the support of the factories and 
each one raise at least as many beets as he can 
handle successfully himself, thus giving the 
factories beets enough for at least a three- 



months slicing campaign, some of these factor- 
ies will be dismantled and the machinery re- 
moved to Colorado, where the farmers are anx- 
ious to have more factories. Michigan oft'ers 
some advantages over Colorado, in being 
nearer a ready market and in having plenty of 
water and cheap fuel close at hand. The farmer 
is learning how to handle the sugar beet crop, 
and many of the costly losses of the first years 
of experiment have been overcome. It will be 
a sorry day when the Michigan farmer loses 
this infant and promising industr)^ Farm lands 
have increased in value, mortgages have been 
wiped out, and new life and new vitality 
brought to the rural districts by the shower of 
ready cash paid out each fall for the beets by 
the sugar factories. The price was intended to 
stimulate extra efforts for high-grade beets, by 
paying $4.50 per ton of beets, averaging 12 
per cent, in sugar contents, and 12^ cents for 
each additional per cent, of sugar in the beets. 
In 1905 the farmer is offered his choice of $5 
per ton, flat rate, or the former sliding scale. 
This ought to bring an enormous increase in 
the beet supply, as one of the main objections 
of the farmers and beet growers has been on 
the assumption of incorrect sugar valuations by 
the factory taremen and chemists. No other 
crop raised by farmers the world over specifies 
from year to year exactly the price to be paid, 
long months in advance of the harvest. Sugar 
beets do. The Michigan farmer should not 
take any one year as a criterion of the crop, 
but should try the crop for a term of years and 
strike an average, the same as he would with 
wheat, potatoes, or any other farm crop, all of 
which have fat seasons and lean seasons. 

The beet sugar industry in Bay County has 
furnished work for thousands of men, women 
and children in the beet fields in spring and 
summer, while many hundreds more have found 
work in the sugar factories during the late fall 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



197 



and early winter wlien employment for com- 
mon labor is always scarce. 

The Michigan Chemical Company manu- 
factures high-proof spirits from the refuse mo- 
lasses of the beet sugar factories. For the first 
two years it was a hard problem for the factor- 
ies to dispose of this refuse, for the State game 
and fish warden stopped its drainage into the 
river, claiming it killed the fish. Since this 
mammoth distillery has begun operations, with 
its train of about sixty tank railroad cars, each 
holding 7,000 gallons of molasses, which they 
gather directly from the sugar factories, the 
problem has been solved. 

The beet sugar industry is a money-maker 
for railroads, for thousands of tons of beets 
are brought long distances, and more could be 
secured in that manner if railroad facilities 
would permit it. This very year a new rail- 
road to the "Thumb"' is planned to carry sugar 
beets to local factories, and local coal to the 
lake ports for export. 

The coal industry is constantly being aug- 
mented by the sinking of new shafts, provid- 
ing cheap fuel to the railroads, and volumin- 
ous freight to the manufacturing centers of the 
East and West. Coal miners from Ohio, Illi- 
nois, Pennsylvania and Indiana are flocking 
here, where they find living and working con- 
ditions more favorable. Quaint little mining 
communities have sprung up around the coal 
mines, and new sources of supply created for 
our business interests. 

With chief fuel and deep-water transpor- 
tation and ample railroad facilities, new and 
varied manufacturing institutions are rapidly 
filling up the gaps along the desirable river 
front left by the removal of the sawmills and 
lumber piles. The lumber jacks have given 
way to sugar beet experts, coal miners, ship- 
builders, iron workers, wood workers and 
skilled labor of every variety. 



Marl has been discovered a few miles north 
of here, and the "Million Dollar Plant" of the 
Hecla Cement Company now occupies one of 
the most desirable river front sites on the west 
bank, just south of the bay. This institution 
built its own railroad to the marl beds and coal 
mines, which it will operate jointly. Great 
docks are planned for vessels of the deepest 
draught to handle their cement and coal out- 
put. Litigation between the stockholders has 
tied up the plant for some time, but the legal 
tangles are gradually being straightened out, 
and the mammoth plant will resume operations 
on an even larger scale, acording to the plans 
of the large stockholders. Its present capacity 
is 4,000 barrels of high-grade cement daily. 
The equipment of the plant is excellent, elec- 
tricity being made to do much of the manual 
labor. 

The manufacturing plant known as the In- 
dustrial Works has for nearly 40 years been 
one of Bay City's mainstays. It has grown 
from a humble beginning, in 1868, to be one 
of the largest establishments of its kind in the 
world. The railroad wrecking cranes which 
the Industrial Works builds are its own special- 
ties. That they are unsurpassed is proven by 
the fact that they are known and used wher- 
ever the iron horse or electrical spark serve 
the world's commerce and industries. Their 
display at the World's Fair at St. Louis in 1904 
attracted international attention. Orders for 
these cranes have come only recently from far- 
off Japan, and from the Siberian Railway, 
where the e.xigencies of the Russo-Japanese 
War make their use very essential. 

Bousfield & Company's woodenware works 
is the largest pail and tub factory in the world. 
The Hanson- Ward Veneer Company is one of 
the latest and largest manufacturing plants in 
the South End. 

The West Bay City Ship Building Com- 



198 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



pany's shipyard is one of the roomiest and 
most modern plants on the Great Lakes. For 
30 years this plant has launched some of the 
best boats on the inland seas. Year after year 
the plant has been improved, and in 1905 it is 
building three of the largest craft afloat on 
fresh water in tlie world. The steamer "Syl- 
vania" of the Tomlinson-Davidson fleet, 
launched with appropriate ceremonies in 
March, 1905, and christened by Marion David- 
son Young, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. F. P. 
Young, the youngest miss ever accorded that 
honor on the Great Lakes, is the largest freight 
steamer yet floated on fresh water, being 524 
feet over all, 54 feet beam, with 30 vertical 
hopper hatches, and triple expansion engines. 
Two sister ships are now in construction, a 
force of about 1,000 men doing the work, with 
a pay-roll of $8,000 weekly. 

The James Davidson shipyard has hereto- 
fore built wooden vessels exclusively, but with 
the new modern dry dock just completed, a 
new field is opened for this pioneer ship-build- 
er. He began life as a deck-boy, and became 
in turn sailor, captain, owner and ship-builder, 
and is to-day the best known mariner on the 
Lakes. He still owns a large fleet of steamers 
and barges, and his colors are conspicuous at 
all lake ports. 

Fine salt wells and cheap coal brought the 
North American Chemical Company's plant 
to Bay City, where the buildings cover 10 acres 
south of the city limits. The company pro- 
duces chemicals of high quality and ships large 
quantities of fine table salt, as well as coal from 
its mines. ^Nlost of these products are now be- 
ing shipped by water, and the river is again 
showing signs of returning commercial activ- 
ity. A new device for loading salt, with a ca- 
pacity of 100 tons per hour, is being installed 
by this company, and new additions are con- 
stantly being made to the plant itself. It is 



owned and operated by the United Alkali Com- 
pany, of Liverpool, England, and represents an 
investment of $1,000,000 of foreign capital. 

The Smalley motor works is one of the 
latest and most substantial additions to the 
North End industries, and the number of 
skilled machine hands is being constantly in- 
creased. The Michigan Pipe Company and 
National Cycle Manufacturiiig Company have 
for years taken a foremost place in their lines 
of business, and have done much to advertise 
the city. The "National" bicycle is known and 
appreciated the world over. M. Garland's 
machine shops, Bay City iron works, Walworth 
& Nelville JManufacturing Company's cross-arm 
factor^', Excelsior foundry, Marine iron works, 
Bay City knitting mills, Mackinnon Manufac- 
turing Company, Smalley Brothers Company, 
Bromfield & Colvin's grist-mill, Hine & Chat- 
field's immense flour and grist-mill and grain 
elevator, Beutel canning factory, Beutel Coop- 
erage & Woodenware Works, the Stiver-Ma- 
ther Company (brick, plaster and cement). 
National Boiler Works, shade roller plant, Bel- 
gian chicory mills, with plants both on the East 
and W^est Side, Bay City Plow Works, Bay 
City Yacht Works, Standard Hoop Company, 
Bay City Stone Company, West Side brick- 
yard, Goldie hoop factory. Bay City Dredging 
Company, Saginaw Bay Towing Company, 
Wadworth & Nelville Manufacturing Company 
(wood turners), are leaders in their respective 
fields of endeavor, and suggest the number 
and extent of the diversified industries that 
followed the decline of the lumber industry. 
A score of box factories give employment to 
a large force of men and boys, and annually 
cut up large quantities of the local mills' out- 
put. In former years this lumber went East 
to be cut up for box shooks. 

A huge fleet of fishing tugs and schooners 
reaps annually a rich harvest of the finny tribes 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



199 



from the river and the bay. Farther north are 
tlie fishing grounds for lake trout, white fish, 
lake herring, sturgeon, and other choice deni- 
zens of the deep, while the Saginaw river teems 
with pickerel, bass and perch. The State game 
and fish laws are rigidly enforced, in order to 
preserve so vital an industry, and the State 
plants millions of these fish in the lakes each 
year. The fishing industry is growing annually, 
as new markets are opened in the far East. The 
rivers north of here afford rare sport in an- 
gling for brook trout, grayling and river bass. 
The shores of the river and bay are still the fa- 
vorite breeding grounds of wild ducks and 
geese, and in the rural districts quail, part- 
ridge, snipe and grouse afford sport for the 
hunter. Rabbits and similar small game 
abound, but deer and larger game are now rare- 
ly found in Bay County, although but recently 
an Indian was arrested at Pinconning and 
fined for running down a deer with dogs, the 
antlered victim finally leaping into an inclos- 
ure where he fell an easy prey to the pot-hunter. 
In winter hundreds of idle workingmen and 
fishermen find profitable sport spearing fish 
through the ice in Saginaw Bay. Their collec- 
tion of little shanties on sleds forms annually 
one of the most unique communities on the 
American continent. The fishermen have 
named its .shifting scenes "Iceburg, U. S. A." ; 
from January to March, 1905, it contained 
about 700 spearmen. 

In 1905 we find the transition from a crude 
frontier lumber town to a modern business and 
manufacturing center quite complete. The 
community by dint of pluck, perseverance and 
industry has tided over the critical period in 
its municipal existence, and with the united 
energies of both sides of the great river will 
soon mount another tidal wave of prosperity 
and enterprise, which will carry us farther and 
higher than ever before. The scarcity of 
11 



homes suitable for the mechanic and laborer 
describes, better than pages of facts and figures, 
the steady revival and progress of the Bay 
Cities, commercially and industrially. 

The natural position of Bay City at the 
head of navigation on the Saginaw River is 
one of great advantage. A glance at the map 
of Michigan will show that Saginaw Bay cuts 
into Lower Michigan until it reaches a point 
far in toward its geographical center. Bay 
City is by many miles the farthest inland har- 
bor from the general outline of the State, of 
any point reached by deep-water navigation. 
This favorable position gives us a large extent 
of tributary territory, east, nortli and west. As 
the pine barrens to the north are cleared and 
the settlements thicken, the importance of Bay 
City as a trading center will increase. In this 
very month of April, 1905, the Bay City 
Board of Trade is negotiating for a big pas- 
senger and freight steamer for the long neg- 
lected shore route between here and Detroit, 
with every prospect of success. The West 
Side will be made to realize the truth of the 
proverb, that "In Union There is Strength," 
for another large chemical company, the Faulk- 
ner Chemical Company, has accepted the site 
offered by the Board of Trade, with a condi- 
tional bonus, and the plant is to go to the West 
Side, where it will grace the river front. So 
the dawn of Greater Bay City will be ushered 
in by the advent of significant events in our 
business annals. The tide has turned ! Prog- 
ress and enterprise will again come to their 
own, and permanent industrjes take the place 
of the lumber and salt industries, which cre- 
ated Bay City. The farming country all about 
is rapidly becoming productive, and ".\ll ro.\ds 

AND GOOD ROADS LEAD TO BaY CiTY 1" 

Our location has ever been a fortunate one. 
The wide sweep of the bay prevents gathering 
storms from doing damage here. Cyclones, 



200 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



hurricanes or floods are unknown in our an- 
nals of the past 70 years! Our cHmate is sa- 
lubrious, our winters crisp and long but equa- 
ble, while the summers are cool and made de- 
Ughtful by the lake breezes, even during the 
most heated periods. Verily Nature has done 
much for this valley. Let us rise to a full 
realization of all these unbounded natural ad- 
vantages and future opportunities ! 

Much of this new vitality, enterprise and 
faith in the future of these once divided and 
weak communities, is based on the culmina- 
tion of long years of endeavor for the union 
of the sister cities. From 1877, when the 
three villages across the river from Bay City 
joined forces and became West Bay City, until 
the actual consolidation consummated in April, 
1905, the progressive and far-seeing forces of 
both communities sought to bring about the 
luiited action which augured so well for both 
sides of the river. For nearly 30 years the 
benefits of such a union have been acknowledged 
on both sides of the river, but at every critical 
juncture little differences would arise, — mu- 
nicipal indebtedness, the vexed cjuestion of tax- 
ation and personal considerations, — to keep 
alive the imaginary dividing line in the river. 

On June 21, 1887, the Legislature passed 
an act to unite Bay City, West Bay City and 
the village of Essexville, the union to take place 
in 1 89 1, and provisions were made for a char- 
ter committee, representing all three corpora- 
tions, which was to draft the consolidation 
charter, and submit it to the Legislature of 
1889 for action. The politicians managed to 
secure an election on the proposition, and to the 
disappointment of all public-spirited citizens 
the voters on the East Side defeated the propo- 
sition by a narrow margin, while the West 
Side voted largely against the union. 

The matter was in abeyance for a few 



3'ears, and then the advocates of Greater Bay 
City again moved to follow the example of the 
up-river towns. Saginaw, which had long been 
below Bay City, East Side, in population, con- 
summated a union with Saginaw City, three 
miles down the river, thus regaining over night 
the coveted position of being the third city of 
Michigan, and relegating Bay City to the rear! 
There, as here, consolidation brought out new 
activities, and any one can readily see that the 
older but less fortuntaely situated city above the 
Carrollton sand-bar has gained much in pres- 
tige and material progress by consolidation. 
With a population of more than 40,000, it took 
at once a place among the large cities of the 
country, while her peers to the north were 
hopelessly divided, and lost sight of among the 
multitude of mediocre country towns in the 
roster of our countr\-'s municipalities ! The 
success of the union o^ our old commercial and 
industrial rivals, though separated by several 
miles, gave new impetus to the movement in 
the Bay Cities, which from the first have had 
their business centers exactly on opposite sides 
of the inland harbor. They succeeded in se- 
curing another referendum vote on consoli- 
dation in April, 1903, and until the day of the 
election, all the forces, pro and con, threshed 
over again all the arguments of other years 
and less opportune occasions. But the success- 
ful merger of large municipalities like Brook- 
lyn and New York, the absorption by Chicago 
of suburbs for miles around, on the presump- 
tion that population and rank in the world's 
great cities counted for much, and the undeni- 
able success of consolidation for the much less 
favorably situated cities of Saginaw, proved 
more convincing arguments than any thereto- 
fore advanced by the progressists. 

A joint committee of business men from 
both sides of the river took up the defense of 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



20 1 



consolidation, and on the eve of the election 
issued the following address to the citizens of 
both sides of the river : 

"I. Consolidation will give iis at once a 
population of 45,000, and therefore accord us 
a prestige as a city we do not now possess. II. 
It w'ill give us a municipal credit that all grow- 
ing cities need, and enable our bonds to be nego- 
tiated upon a market now denied to us. III. It 
will lessen the expenses of administering public 
affairs and reduce taxation, on the principle, 
that larger cities can be run proportionately 
cheaper and more efficiently than smaller ones. 
IV. The united city will be the county seat, and 
united will have less taxation and more influ- 
ence in the affairs of our county. V. It will 
enhance the value of real estate. VI. It will 
lessen the cost of running the city government, 
inasmuch as it will reduce the number of heads 
of departments. VII. It will tend to draw to 
us manufacturing industries and give better 
wages and more constant employment to labor. 
It is well known that parties seeking location 
for investments in industrial pursuits always 
inquire first of all about the tax rate, which in 
Bay City in 1902 was as follows: Valuation: 
$11,447,534.00, rate of taxation for city, 
school, and highway purposes, $17.13 per 
$r.ooo valuation; in West Bay City, the valu- 
ation was $3,321,540.00, tax rate $29.51 per 
$1,000 valuation! These figures are an argu- 
ment for themselves! VIII. The river front- 
age on the East Side is quite generally occu- 
pied, but the West Side still offers many ad- 
vantageous sites, which cannot be availed of 
because of the high rate of taxation. IX. In- 
dustries and factories that employ labor are the 
foundation of municipal prosperity, and with- 
out them our cities cannot grow. Therefore 
every effort should be made by citizens on both 
sides of the river to bring industries employ- 
ing labor to us. At present all new industries 



locate outside our city limits. X. The loca- 
tion of the cities on either side of the river, 
their present corporate limits, their fixed posi- 
tion in the business centers, the ownership and 
location of the bridges across the river, the 
direct interests of a great number of citizens 
in both cities, and the indirect but mutual in- 
terests of all, the existing conditions relative 
to quasi public corporations, public buildings 
and public utilities, the dependence of both 
cities upon the same service for its future 
erowth, fit them for consolidation upon the 
fair and equitable plan provided for by the 
act of the Legislature. Consolidation is as- 
sured, the only question being when it shall 
take place, and the sooner that question is final- 
ly settled the beter! Every interest of each 
city can be cared for without any detriment to 
the other, and the present properties of each 
can be used for the mutual advantage of both. 
The public schools can be increased in efficiency 
at a decrease in cost of maintenance. The 
fixed charges in both cities can and should be 
decreased, and we may add must be decreased. 
No city can hope to grow or l^ecome the 
fixed abode of a prosperous and contented peo- 
ple until the question of whether it is cheaper 
to own an ordinary home or pay rent is settled 
in favor of the ownership of the home." 

This address was signed by A. McDonell 
(deceased February, 1905). Charles W. Han- 
dy, A. E. Bousfield, G. H. Schindehette, Alex- 
ander Zagelmeyer and Frank H. ^lohr,— three 
from each side of the river. This was adopted 
and approved by the joint committee of busi- 
ness men held March 23, 1903, and the follow- 
ing attached their signatures: Hon. Spencer 
O. Fisher, H. S. Lewis, Lee E. Joslyn. S. R. 
Birchard, S. P. Flynn, H. H. Norrington, 
Mayor John Walsh, Dr. Isaac E. Randall, 
Robert Beutel, Henry Benson. C. S. Ruttle, 
J. W. Coles, John McGonigle and John J. 



202 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Flood, all of the West Side ; and John C. Hew- 
itt, F. J. Trombley, James E. Davidson, 
Charles A. Eddy, Ed. Kroencke, Walter D. 
Young, George D. Jackson, J. M. Miller, 
Thomas W. Moore, Charles R. Wells, A. E. 
Bousfield, Mayor William Cunningham, H. 
G. Wendtland, H. M. Gillett, Gen. C. R. Haw- 
ley, George W. Ames and Judge Hamilton iM. 
Wright, all of the East Side. 

This address was supplemented by the 
West Side business interests, who were all 
along misrepresented by tlie opposition : 

"We, the undersigned property owners and 
taxpayers of West Bay City, desire hereby to 
inform the public that we are heartily in favor 
of the consolidation of the Bay Cities. We 
think our prestige will be very much increased 
by having one large and united city, greater 
numbers and added influence. We believe that 
the rate of taxation will be reduced and in every 
way the interests of this city, as well as of our 
neighbor city, will be benefited by the union. 
AVe think a large city will attract more busi- 
ness enterprise to it, and more population and 
that our prosperity will improve, and our prop- 
erty will be rendered more valuable and busi- 
ness will be better." 

This was signed by Thomas Walsh, George 
L. Mosher, Sage Land & Improvement Com- 
pany, Henry W. Weber, IT. H. Norrington, 
August J. Bothe, George Behmlander, Charles 
A. Babo, Kolb Brothers, Bradley, Miller & Co., 
James Davidson, Spencer O. Fisher, Goldie 
Manufacturing Company, Handy Brothers, 
Handy Coal Mining Company, John M. Kel- 
ton, Fisher Land Company, Lumberman's 
State Bank, W. D. Young & Company, Frank 
H. ^lohr and Beutel & Company, altogether 
the largest employers of labor and capital on 
the West Side. 

Yet no concerted effort was made by those 
favoring the union at the polls, while those op- 



posed had workers at all the voting places. The 
result was awaited with intense interest. The 
arguments contained in the public appeal con- 
tained matters of vital interest to all the people. 
Great was the enthusiasm on the East Side 
when it was found that the vote was practically 
unanimous in favor of consolidation, the major- 
ity exceeding 2,000 out of a total of less than 
5,000 votes cast! On the West Side the first 
returns again showed an adverse vote of 255, 
but later an error was discovered in the Fourth 
Ward of West Bay City, where the election 
board had simply transposed the figures, giv- 
ing the majc/rity of 126 in favor of the union 
to the "nayes," and this was corrected in the 
official canvass of the votes by the Council. 
Similar errors were claimed to exist in other 
wards, and the consolidationists insisted that 
they had actually received a majority of the 
votes. So close was the vote, and so disap- 
pointing was the showing made by the "antis," 
that by mutual consent the joint charter com- 
mittee, provided for in Representative John 
Washer's consolidation bill, was duly appointed 
from each side of the river, including the re- 
spective mayors and comptrollers, several al- 
dermen and three business men, both sides be- 
ing equally represented. After many sessions 
they approved and submitted the consolidated 
city's charter ; it was duly passed by the Legis- 
lature without any further protest, and the citi- 
zens breathed easier. They now felt certain 
that the long sought for union of mutual inter- 
ests would be completed along those lines in 
April, 1905, and a stone of obstruction removed 
from the path of both cities. 

State Senator Heine and Representative 
J. E. Brockway were both placed on record be- 
fore the election of 1904, and both claimed un- 
equivocally to favor the consummation of the 
union. In January the first mutterings of a 
storm were heard, and rumors began drifting 





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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



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about the two cities that the tax figures sub- 
mitted by the West Side two years before, bad 
as they were, did not represent tlie actual 
state of affairs. Taxpayers on the East Side 
\\ere frightened by the danger, real or imag- 
inary, of having to share the tax burden of 
the West Side, and some of the most ardent 
consolidationists were by these representations 
driven to oppose the union at the last moment. 

Choosing the psychological time when Sen- 
ator Heine was at home ill with the smallpox, 
Representative Brockway on January 24th in- 
troduced a bill REPEALING the consolidation 
act, and at once rushed it through the Legisla- 
ture ! It was not referred to committee, in 
onler that the people might be heard on its 
merits, but he had it given immediate effect. 

The people at home were stunned by the 
suddenness of the blow ; but when they realized 
that all the work of 15 years was again to be 
undone, and the dial of progress turned back 
for another 10 or 15 years, and solely at the 
behest of personal interests, the public-spirited 
citizens at once rallied in defense of the long 
cherished union. 

Indignation meetings were held. Straw 
votes and long petitions asking for the repeal, 
secured under miapprehension of facts, were 
spurned. The business men almost without 
exception signed petitions to Governor Warner 
asking him to veto the "railroaded" repeal 
act, and Senator Heine promised to give the 
people a chance to be heard in the Upper 
House. But the very next day Senator Do- 
herty, claiming instructions to that effect from 
Heine, also rushed the repeal act through the 
Senate, and nothing but the Governor's veto 
could then save consolidation ! 

To the end of having the act vetoed, the 
Board of Trade, led by President Walter D. 
Young, Homer E. Buck and others, and the 
West Side business men, led by Hon. Spencer 



O. Fisher, E. T. Carrington, Frank Handy 
and others, at once petitioned Governor War- 
ner to be heard before he signed the bill. 

The "antis" insisted that he sign it, basing 
their claims on a snap election called by the 
City Councils, whose members on both sides 
were almost a unit against consolidation, held 
January 10, 1905. The electors were not asked 
to vote again on the question of consolidation, 
yes or no, but rather on the union on the basis 
of the charter as passed 1)y the Legislature of 
1903. The opposition figured that the West 
Side would want that agreement kept, and they 
were right, for the election, if such it could 
be called, was reported to have resulted in 
1,264 votes for the charter as it stood, to only 
6 against it! On the East Side some hard 
work was done to secure an exactly opposite 
vote on the grounds of the West Side's poor 
financial condition, and this too worked, al- 
though not as well as the "antis" had antici- 
pated, the vote being 397 in favor of keeping 
the agreement and charter, to 1,006 in favor 
of amending the charter, and creating separate 
Not one single vote was 



taxing districts. 



CAST AGAINST CONSOLIDATION ITSELF! 

Meetings were held in the Fraser House 
and in the Opera House protesting against the 
repeal act, and Governor Warner set February 
1 6th for the day of hearing both sides to the 
controversy. The business men's committee 
favoring the union went down the night before, 
while the "antis" chartered a train, to which 
admission was by card, and wearing badges 
asking for the veto, they marched up to the 
Capitol at 10 next morning. The consolida- 
tionists had Hon. John C. Weadock and James 
E. Duffy present their case, together with a vast 
array of facts and figures, while the "antis" 
were represented by Hon. Nathan B. Bradley, 
who favored separate taxing districts, but 
wanted consolidation. Mayor C. J. Barnett of 



206 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



the West Side, and City Attorney S. G. Hough- 
ton of the West Side, and H. M. Gillett, at- 
torney for several large manufacturing insti- 
tutions, who also wanted separate taxing dis- 
tricts. The Representative Hall was well 
filled by Bay Cityans, and the hour was one 
ripe with possibilities to Bay City. East and 
West Side. 

Governor Warner took the matter under 
advisement, and that same afternoon vetoed 
the repeal act ! His message was as follows : 
"The act which is sought to be repealed by 
this bill was passed at the session of the Legis- 
lature of 1903, and provided for the consoli- 
dation of the cities of Bay City and West Bay 
City into one mimicipality. It is this act of 
the Legislature which the bill, which I am now 
returning without my approval, seeks to re- 
peal. After giving every opportunity for a 
hearing of both sides, those who are advocat- 
ing, and those who are opposing this bill, I am 

CONVINCED TH.\T A VERY L.\RGE MAJORITY OF 
THE PEOPLE OF EACH OF THE CITIES FAVOR .\ 
CONSOLIDATION, THE ONLY DIFFERENCE SEEMS 
TO BE WHETHER THE ACT PASSED SHOULD 
STAND AS IT IS, OR THE WORK OF CONSOLIDA- 
TION BEGIN ANEW. Such being the case, I be- 
lieve THAT THE BEST INTERESTS OF ALL WILL 
BE CONSERVED BY LETTING THE PRESENT ACT 
OF CONSOLIDATION STAND, AND REMEDY ANY 
DEFECTS IN ITS OPERATION BY FUTURE LEGIS- 
LATION. Such minor details of practical oper- 
ation might better be left to this or a succeed- 
ing Legislature, rather than that the great busi- 
ness interests of the two cities should suffer 
from any future contention as to the main point 
at issue — the consolidation of the two 

CITIES UNDER ONE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 

I believe that by the uniting of the energies of 
the two cities into one municipality, a better and 
more economical government will result, and 
I have no doubt that the future will prove 



THE CORRECTNESS OF THIS VIEW." So far the 

sturdy farmer and business man, now at the 
head of the great state of IMichigan. It was 
his first veto, and is pregnant with possibilities. 
The veto settled the matter, once and for 
all. The two Bay City delegations came home 
on the same train and fraternized as though 
nothing had happened to divide them but a few 
short hours before. At home they were met by 
the citizens with the 33rd Regiment Band, and 
escorted to the Fraser House, where a great 
crowd of happy townspeople had assembled to 
honor the occasion. Hon. Spencer O. Fisher, 
President Walter D. Young of the Board of 
Trade, Homer E. Buck, Frank Handy, A. H. 
Gansser, Dr. William Bishop, Alexander Zagel- 
meyer, F. C. Merrill, and W. H. Gustin of the 
several committees who went to Lansing to 
intercede with Governor Warner to allow con- 
solidation to be consummated, were lifted on 
the shoulders of the enthusiastic throng and in 
brief addresses voiced their conviction, that it 
was all for the best future interests of both 
sides of the river and that it presaged new life 
and progress for Greater Bay City, and its 
45,000 people! This was the song the con- 
solidationists sang on that memorable evening : 

j\[y city 'tis of thee, Greater Bay City! 

Of thee we sing. 

Town where our fathers died, 

Town of our pioneer's pride, 

From every home to-night, 

Let Union ring ! 

Since that day the citizens of both sides of 
the river have aimed to make good the fondest 
hopes and brightest predictions of the union- 
ists. The new hotel project has been given new 
life by the subscription of $50,000, with more 
in sight. The Detroit boat line is assured. The 
new railway to the east will be built this year, 
and the Faulkner Chemical Company's plant 
will add another huge industry to the growing 
list in Greater Bay City. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



207 



Both political parties named excellent tick- 
ets for the official positions under the new 
charter and on April 3, 1905, the first joint 
election was held in the united city. Great in- 
terest was taken in the city ticket, and overshad- 
owed the election of Circuit Judge Chester L. 
Collins, and Road Commissioners George L. 
Frank and William Houser. The first election 
in Greater Bay City resulted as follows : The 
City Council will contain 21 Republicans and 
13 Democrats. The Democrats elect Mayor 
Gustav Hine and Recorder John Boston, the 
Republicans elect Treasurer Edw'ard E. Cor- 
liss, and Comptroller C. J. Barnett. The vote 
was : 

Mayor. Comp- Treasurer. Recorder. 

troUer. 

yi o n H a > r" T 

<:='"■ o rr 3 C3 
< P H S c c 2 o 

^ r~ o '/■ ' *' ••"* 

a ?: '^ ?a P » o 
W.JlRDS. -~ ■ .-^ • 

East Side — r^ 

First 280 280 244 313 295 26s 24s 311 

Second 215 197 210 201 254 159 185 225 

Third 128 log 151 85 192 46 147 92 

Fourth 282 338 345 277 414 206 391 227 

Fifth 187 259 198 248 237 204 206 244 

Sixth 214 152 210 153 232 134 200 163 

Seventh 176 iii 189 loi 207 89 186 106 

Eighth 393 4S5 357 522 388 498 358 526 

Ninth 154 112 148 121 207 67 141 134 

loth 157 209 154 217 163 208 154 214 

nth 279 219 2TT, 224 368 132 293 201 

Totals . ..2465 2471 2479 2462 2957 2003 2506 2443 

West Side— 

I2th 159 211 174 192 161 204 131 234 

13th 209 275 221 251 195 276 128 .352 

14th 137 184 174 148 137 180 120 199 

iSth 205 155 220 137 209 146 161 202 

i6th 162 203 201 159 176 179 163 194 

17th 144 137 168 114 157 124 90 190 

Totals ...1016 1165 1158 1007 1035 1109 793 1371 

Grand to- 
tal for 
Gre a t e r 
Bay City..34Sl 3636 3637 3469 3992 31 12 3299 3814 



The result was somewhat surprising, as the 
united cities are normally Republican by 500 
or more, but the citizens evidently wished to 
divide the honors, giving each side of the river 
two of the main offices, as well as breaking even 
between the parties. 

The united City Council met on Alonday 
evening, April 10, 1905, listened to the brief 
and business-like message of Mayor Hine, 
named S. G. Houghton of the West Side, city 
attorney, Capt. George Turner, East Side, city 
engineer, and John H. Northrup, East Side, 
street commissioner. All the West Side books, 
moneys and records were formally turned over 
and all of the city's business is now centered in 
the City Hall, built 10 years ago with the ex- 
pectation of this very union of the two cities. 

In April, 1895, the East Side voted in fa- 
vor of bonding for $100,000 for this new City 
Hall, by 2,542 ayes to only 820 nayes. Many 
citizens felt the building as planned too extrav- 
agant for the immediate needs of the city, but 
the city fathers felt that while they w-ere build- 
ing, they wanted to provide for a century to 
come, and so more money was voted, and as 
now completed the fine Gothic structure, the 
pride of the cities, has cost over $200,000. 
Most of the offices were occupied November 
27, 1897, and the fire-proof vaults, airy offices, 
fine Council chamber and modern city jail, will 
answer all purposes of the united city for fu- 
ture generations. The Public Library has large 
and airy quarters on the south side of the build- 
ing. 

* * * 

THE CH.VRTER. 

The following extracts from the much 
mooted charter for Greater Bay City will be of 
interest now and in the years to come : 

The Bound.\ries of Greater Bav Citv are 



20S 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



the same as those now emljraced by Bay 
City and West Bay City. The city is divided 
into 17 wards. The first 11 are on the East 
Side of the river, and are the same as those of 
the present East Side city, with boundary hnes 
the same as at present constituted. There are 
six wards on the West Side, the present First 
Ward being the 12th Ward of the consohdated 
city, the Second being the 13th, and so on to 
the Sixth, which is the 17th. 

Officers and Elections. — The terms of 
the first officers elected are to be as foUows : 
Mayor, two years; recorder, two years; treas- 
urer, two years ; comptroller, four years ; alder- 
men (two from each ward), one for one year 
and one for two years; supervisor (one from 
each ward), two years; constable (one from 
each ward), one year; justice of the peace, 
four years. The present justices of the peace 
of Bay City and West Bay City shall hold their 
offices until their terms expire. In succeeding 
elections the term of recorder is to be four 
years. No person shall be eligible to hold the 
office of mayor, if he hold any judicial office or 
any city or county salaried office. The treas- 
iu"er cannot be elected for more than two suc- 
cessive terms. No person can be elected to a 
city or ward office unless he be an elector. 

City elections are to be held on the first 
Mondays in April of each year. The aldermen 
and supervisors are inspectors of city. State and 
county elections. If any one is disqualified by 
reason of being a candidate, the Council shall 
appoint an inspector in his stead. In case of a 
vacancy in the board of inspectors, the electors 
present may fill it. On the Thursday following 
the election, the Common Council shall meet as 
a board of canvassers. All persons elected must 
qualify within 20 days thereafter. Failure to 
qualify leaves the office vacant. In case of a 
tie. the winner shall be elected by lot. An 



elector must reside in the ward 20 days preced- 
ing election day. 

The tenure of the several elective officers of 
both cities, who are not by this act expressly de- 
clared to hold over, shall be at an end. They 
s'nall forthwith turn over their books, records, 
etc., to the proper officers of the consolidated 
city. 

After the organization of the consolidated 
city, the charters of Bay City and West Bay 
City shall thereupon be superseded and re- 
pealed. All property of both cities becomes the 
property of the consolidated city, when the 
organization of the new city is completed. 

A general registration shall be held on the 
first Monday of October, 1908. Until then the 
present registry of electors shall prevail. The 
inspectors of election of each ward shall con- 
stitute a board of registration. On the Saturday 
next preceeding any general city or special elec- 
tion and on such other days as shall be ap- 
pointed by the Council, not exceeding tliree in 
all, an opportunity shall be afforded for regis- 
tration. 

The M.wor shall receive not less than 
$1,000 per annum. He shall preside at all 
meetings of the Council. The acting mayor 
shall preside in his absence. He has the power 
of veto of any ordinance, resolution or motion 
of the Council. It will take a two-thirds vote 
of the Council to pass a measure over his veto ; 
at the following meeting, the mayor shall com- 
municate with the Council, giving his reasons 
for the veto. He shall sign all licenses and 
permits. He is the conservator of the peace of 
Bay City and in an emergency, of which he 
alone shall be judge, he may take command of 
the Police Department. For cause he may re- 
move a member of any board or commission or 
any appointed officer, who shall have a right 
to make a defense. He is ex-officio member of 



AXD REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



209 



the Board of Supervisors and of all boards 
created under the provisions of the act, except- 
ing the Board of Education and the Board of 
Assessors. 

Common Council. — A majority of alder- 
men can do business and a minority can meet 
and adjourn. A meeting of the Council may 
be called at any time by the mayor or acting 
mayor. On a request from six aldermen, the 
mayor shall call a meeting within 24 hours. All 
aldermen shall be given a personal notice of the 
same. All aldermen can be forced to attend 
Council meetings. Non-attendance makes each 
subject to a fine of not more than $5. An alder- 
man remaining away four weeks in succession, 
unless sick or excused, vacates his position. 
Vacancies may be filled by the Council until the 
next charter election. Aldermen are to re- 
ceive $2 per session of the Council. At the first 
annual meeting of the council it shall elect a 
president, who may vote on all occasions. In 
case of a tie vote, the mayor shall break it. The 
Council shall be the judge of the election and 
qualification of its own members and shall have 
the power to make its own rules and by-laws. 
It shall have the power to appoint a city at- 
torney, a street commissioner and a city en- 
gineer by a majority vote. Any officer appoint- 
ed may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the 
Council, but the mayor, recorder, police jus- 
tice and justices of the peace cannot be thus 
removed. Ordinances may be passed bj' a 
majority vote. The Council has supervisory 
control over all officers, agents and employees 
of the city, and over all boards and commis- 
sions. 

No aldermen shall be personally interested 
in any public contract or in the sale or furnish- 
ing of any labor, material, merchandise or sup- 
plies to the city, any ward or any official 
thereof. No alderman shall vote upon any 
question in which he has any direct personal in- 



terest. An alderman violating any of these 
provisions is guilty of a misdemeanor. 

The Council shall control all finances, rights 
and interests, buildings and property belonging 
to the city. 

The Council can control by ordinance the 
river so far as navigation, ferries, docks, etc., 
are concerned ; can control and regulate erection 
of buildings; prescribe location of buildings; 
can appoint sealer of weights and measures; 
can prevent paupers being brought to the city ; 
can lay out and regulate management of market 
places ; can preserve peace, restrain gambling, 
license hotels, saloons, plumbers ; punish drunk- 
ards, vagrants, beggars, fortune tellers, disor- 
derly persons ; license circuses ; define what con- 
stitutes a nuisance ; regulate slaughter houses 
and buildings for storage of explosives; prevent 
obstructions on streets, alle3rs and sidewalks; 
control riding or driving on streets; prevent 
dogs running at large; designate routes of 
parades ; establish pounds ; prevent desecration 
of the Sabbath; protect cemeteries; erect City 
Hall and needful buildings; can acquire works 
by purchase or otherwise for the purpose of 
supplying the city with electric light, power or 
heat; regulate the setting of awnings, posts, 
etc. ; license pawnbrokers, auctioneers, butchers ; 
regulate weights and measures ; assess and col- 
lect taxes; employ all persons confined in jail 
for non-payment of fines; punish offenders of 
ordinances ; purchase land for cemetery outside 
of city; appoint fire wardens; light alleys and 
streets; regulate construction of and clean cel- 
lars, slips, barns, drains, etc. ; prescrilje rules 
for undertakers; regulate soliciting of guests 
for hotels; fix jurors' fees; regulate construc- 
tion of partition fences, walls or buildings ; reg- 
ulate crowds at fires by police ; inspect boilers ; 
regulate laying of gas pipes ; regulate quality 
and weight of bread ; regulate height of tele- 
phone and other poles; regulate stringing of 



210 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



wires, and conducting of telephone exchanges ; 
require building permits ; construct a city mar- 
ket ; prescribe conditions of hcenses for tran- 
sient traders; own voting machines; own and 
operate system of water-works. 

The Council shall control all streets, side- 
walks and alleys ; authorize running of rail- 
roads and street railways, and designate ma- 
terial to be used ; can change the route of any 
such railway ; can acquire private property for 
public purposes ; can issue bonds for any pur- 
pose if sanctioned by a majority vote of the 
electors. 

The Comptroller shall at the end of the 
fiscal year, ending March ist in each year, 
make out a detailed statement of all receipts and 
expenditures of the city for the past year. 
This statement must be signed by the mayor 
and recorder, and filed in the latter's office. 

The comptroller shall keep the finance 
accounts of the city, and countersign all bonds, 
and orders on the treasury. He shall make a 
full statement of the financial accounts of the 
city and print the same. He shall sign all con- 
tracts and agreements on behalf of the city, and 
shall make all purchases for the city or its offi- 
cers. He shall keep a complete set of books 
showing the condition of the city's finances. 

The comptroller shall have the power to 
appoint a deputy and such other assistants as 
he may require, to be approved by the Common 
Council. He may revoke such appointments. 
His salary is fixed at $3,000; he is to pay his 
assistants. 

The comptroller is cx-officio a member of 
the Board of Supervisors. 

The Recorder shall keep a record of all 
ordinances. He may appoint a deputy, to be 
paid by the Council. He shall be responsible 
for the acts and faults of such deputy and may 
remove him at pleasure. As clerk of the Com- 



mon Council his salary is $1,000; as clerk of 
the Board of Education, his salary is $500. 

The Treasurer is the collector of taxes 
and assessments. He has the power to appoint 
one or more deputies, to be approved by the 
Council, and may make and revoke such 
appointment at his pleasure. The salary is 
$3,000 in full for himself and deputies. 

The City Attorney shall be appointed by 
the Council and shall be the counselor and 
solicitor for the city. He is cx-ofRcio a mem- 
ber of the Board of Supervisors. His term is 
two years. His annual salary, which cannot be 
less than $1,200, is to be fixed by the Council. 

Street Commissioner. — The term of office 
of street commissioner shall be two years. He 
shall be responsible for the wagons, sprinklers, 
tools, etc., of the city and shall have care of the 
streets and alleys. 

City Engineer. — The term of office of 
city engineer shall be two years. The salary 
is to be determined by the Council. 

Water Works Committee. — The mayor 
shall annually appoint at the second meeting of 
the Council in April, or as soon thereafter as 
convenient, four aldermen who, with the mayor, 
shall constitute this committee which shall 
have full charge of the Water Works Depart- 
ment. It shall submit a monthly report to the 
Council. It shall have all the powers of the 
present Board of Water Works. At its first 
meeting a president pro tern shall be appointed, 
to hold office for one year. 

Board of Health. — On nomination of the 
mayor, the Council at the first meeting in April 
shall appoint four persons, electors and prac- 
ticing physicians, who, with the mayor, shall 
constitute the Board of Health. One of its 
members shall be secretary, who is the only one 
to receive a salary, this to be fixed by the 
Council. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



211 



Fire Committee. — The mayor and four 
aldermen shall form this committee, which shall 
have entire charge of the Fire Department. 
They shall serve without compensation and 
no member thereof shall hold any other politi- 
cal office. All officers and members of the 
present department shall be retained during 
good behavior. There shall be no appeal from 
the committee's decision when any member is 
dismissed. 

Police Committee. — The mayor and four 
aldermen, appointed by himself, shall form this 
committee, which shall meet on the second 
Tuesday of each month and at any other time 
the mayor shall direct. The recorder is clerk 
of the committee. The Council shall by ordin- 
ance prescribe the powers and duties to be 
exercised by this committee and shall place 
under the direction of the committee, subject 
to the supervisory control of the Council, the 
care, control and management of the police 
force. No member of the department shall be 
removed without cause and all police officers 
now in office in Bay City and West Bay City 
shall remain in office until removed for cause. 

Electric Light Committee. — The mayor 
and four aldermen, appointed by himself, shall 
constitute this committee, which shall have 
entire control of the electric light works. Any 
person holding stock or in any way interested 
in an electric light company shall be disqualified 
for membership. The powers and duties of 
the committee shall be prescribed by ordinance 
of the Council. 

Bo.\RD OF Assessors. — This board shall 
be composed of the comptroller and two elect- 
ors and the president shall be the comptroller, 
who himself receives no pay. The salary of 
the other members is to be fixed by the Council. 
The assessors shall be members of the Board 
of Supervisors. The duties of this board are 



the same as that of the present Board of 
Assessors. 

Bo.vrd of Public Works. — The mayor 
city comptroller, city engineer, with two elect- 
ors appointed by the Council, constitute this 
board. The city engineer and electors shall not 
hold any elective office under the charter. The 
members of this board shall receive $150 per 
year. The board shall have exclusive charge 
and management of all public buildings and 
without its recommendation no contracts for 
public work can be let by the Council. 

Local Improvements and Assessments. 
— The consolidated city charter on this subject 
is similar to the present charter of Bay City. 
The expense of paving, etc., is to be charged to 
the property specially benefited thereby, accord- 
ing to the benefits derived therefrom. The 
general fund of the city pays 30 per cent, of 
the cost, the street and alley crossings are paid 
out of the ward fund and the remainder by 
the property specially benefitted. 

The Council shall not order a street paved 
excepting by a three-fourths vote of all alder- 
men elect. When any pavement is petitioned 
for by a majority vote of the property owners, 
a majority vote of the Council can pass the 
measure. All public work shall be estimated 
by the Board of Public Works and bids shall 
be asked. 

Money collected on local tax rolls shall be 
placed to the credit of the fund for which the 
same is collected and used in paying off the 
bonds covering the special improvement. Be- 
fore July 1st each year the Board of 
Public Works shall report to the Council what 
amount is needed for special improvements in 
order that the amount may be raised by 
bonding. 

General Taxation. — The Council may 
raise annually by tax such sum of money as 



211 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



may be necessary, not exceeding two per cent., 
aside from the school tax on the real and per- 
sonal property of the city. The Council shall 
direct on July 20th the amount of money to be 
raised. The Board of Education by a major- 
ity vote shall determine the amount of money 
to be raised for school purposes. Every alder- 
man shall recommend the amount to be raised 
for ward purposes, not exceeding one per cent. 
The State law governing general taxation shall 
prevail. The Board of Review shall consist 
of the Board of Assessors, Board of Public 
Works (except city engineer) and city attorney. 
Five shall constitute a quorum. 

Lighting. — It shall be lawful for the city 
to purchase or to construct, operate and main- 
tain either independent or in connection with 
water-w orks, within or without the city, works 
for the supplying of the city or vicinity with 
gas, electric or other lights. A two-thirds vote 
of the aldermen is necessary to authorize and 
operate the lighting systems now owned by 
the city of Bay City and West Bay City, as now 
used, operated and maintained for municipal 
and commercial lighting. 

The city is authorized to borrow not exceed- 
ing one-half of one per cent, for the construc- 
tion of lighting works. The Council may 
raise money with which to make repairs and 
alterations in extending the city lighting 
works. 

The Police Court of Bay City is re- 
tained. It has exclusive jurisdiction over all 
criminal cases arising within the city limits, 
trying offenders under the ordinances and 
State laws and holding the defendants in fel- 
onies for trial in the Circuit Court. The pres- 
ent police justice is to retain his position until 
the second Monday of April, 1907, at which 
time the Council shall designate one of the jus- 
tices of the peace of Bay City to handle Police 
Court business, paying the justice $500 a year 



for the work. The court shall be open at all 
reasonable hours, excepting Sundays and holi- 
days. The Council can prescribe by ordinance 
for the holding of the sessions of the court. 
The police shall bring all persons charged with 
offenses promptly before the court for a hear- 
ing. Persons can be punished by the justice 
for contempt of court. 

It is the duty of police officers to serve all 
processes issued out of the Police Court. 

Upon the written request of the justice, the 
Council can designate one or more officers to 
attend the court. No policeman shall take any 
convicted prisoner away to prison. This is 
made the duty of the sheriff. 

Witnesses refusing to appear in court and 
give testimony can be attached and held in the 
County Jail until needed, not to exceed thirty 
days. The city shall have the use of the 
County Jail for the imprisonment of all persons 
convicted under ordinances. 

The present salary of the police justice is 
$1,800. Until the present justice goes out of 
office, the salary is fixed by the charter at 
$1,500. Neither the police justice nor the 
justice of the peace is to receive any fees for 
work done in the Police Court. 

The police justice must keep a true record 
of his proceedings. Fines must be turned over 
to the county treasurer within 48 hours in 
State cases, and to the city treasurer for viola- 
tions of the city ordinances, to be used for 
charitable purposes. 

Miscellaneous. — All money except school 
funds shall be drawn from the city treasury in 
pursuance of an order from the Council by 
warrant signed by the recorder and comptroller. 
The treasurer shall exhibit to the Council at the 
end of the fiscal year an annual statement. 

A record of all ordinances shall be kept by 
the recorder. 

All ordinances, by-laws, regulations and 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



213 



rules of the Councils of the cities of Bay City 
and West Bay City now in force, and not incon- 
sistent with this act, shall remain in force until 
repealed or amended by the Council, under this 
act. within the respective territories for which 
they were originally adopted, provided that all 
rights, privileges or franchises, heretofore 
granted to any person, persons or corporations, 
shall be continued in force by this act, and they 
shall extend over the entire consolidated city. 

Within one year after the first annual elec- 
tion, the Council shall cause all acts and parts 
of acts of incorporation to be revised and cor- 
rected so as to conform to the provisions of 
said acts, and print the same in book form. 

All new plats of land within the city must 
be approved by the Council. It is a misde- 
meanor to sell lots from plats that have not been 
thus approved. 

All deeds, conveyances, etc., shall be exe- 
cuted by the mayor and recorder as directed by 
the Council. 

All official bonds shall be filed with the 
recorder for safe keeping. 

The city need give no bond in any litigation. 
All city employes shall be witnesses in suits 
without charging fees. 

All accounts against the city must be ac- 
companied by an affidavit. 

Any officer who resigns shall turn over all 
books, papers and moneys to his successor. A 
violation of this is a misdemeanor. 

No loan shall be made by the Common 
Council in any year exceeding the amounts pre- 
scribed in this act. Old bonds may be re- 
funded. Bonds shall bear a legal rate of in- 
terest. The comptroller shall keep a correct 
account of all bonds outstanding. 

The mayor, city attorney, comptroller and 
city assessors shall be members of the Board of 
Supervisors, and get the same pay as other 



members. Supervisors of wards shall exercise 
the same functions as those of townships. 

Public Schools. — The territory embraced 
bv the two cities shall constitute the Union 
School District of Bay City, which shall be 
subject to the general laws of the State. 

All members of both Boards of Education 
elected in 1903 shall hold office until the first 
Saturday in October, 1905. All elected in 
1904 shall hold their office until the first Sat- 
urday in October, 1906. On the first Saturday 
in October, 1906, and every two years there- 
after, one member shall be elected in each ward. 

No person holding any other office or ap- 
pointment under the city government shall be 
eligible to membership on the Board of Edu- 
cation. 

The recorder shall be cx-ofRcio clerk of the 
Board of Education. If he fail to discharge 
his duties, he may be removed. The city treas- 
urer is cx-ofHcio treasurer of the school district. 
He must give bond to the board. If he fail, 
the board may appoint another treasurer. 

School moneys may be deposited in a bank 
paying the largest interest. School funds shall 
not be loaned to any member of the board. The 
recorder and comptroller must sign all orders 
on the school fund. 

The Board of Education shall have full 
power to purchase school sites, build and fur- 
nish school houses, maintain schools, hire su- 
perintendent and teachers, etc. It shall also 
have authority to establish one or more high 
.schools. 

Before June 20th each year, the board shall 
determine the amount of money necessary to 
be raised by taxes for the support of the schools. 
The same shall be reported to the comptroller, 
who shall spread the amount upon the assess- 
ment rolls. One per cent, per year can be 
raised for school purposes, not including the 



2IzL 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



payment of bonded indebtedness. The board is 
authorized to borrow money by bonding, but it 
must be authorized by a majority vote of all 
taxpayers. Interest higher than 5 per cent, 
shall not be paid. The board may refund 
bonds. 

At the first regular meeting of the board 
held after each election the board shall elect a 
president and vice-president. It may adopt 
rules and ordinances. 

No member of the Board of Education 
shall be personally interested in any contract 
with the board, nor interested in the sale of 
property to the district. No member shall 
vote on any question, in which he is personally 
interested. 

Public Libraries. — At the first meeting 
of the Board of Education herein provided for 
(third Tuesday in April, 1905, or as soon there- 
after as convenient), the board shall appoint 
six persons, who, with the president of the 
board, shall be trustees of the Public Library 
or Libraries. Their terms of office shall be 



one, two, three, four, five and six years respec- 
tively. One member shall be appointed an- 
nually thereafter to serve six years. They 
will be known as the Board of Trustees of the 
Public Libraries of Bay City. The president 
of the Board of Education shall be cx-ofHcio 
chairman of the library trustees. 

An annual tax of $2,000 shall be ordered 
raised by the Council for library purposes. 
The city treasurer shall be the custodian of 
the board's funds. 

The ministers of the Presbyterian, Meth- 
odist, Baptist, Congregational, Catholic, Ger- 
man Lutheran, Episcopal and Swedish 
churches, the president of the Board of Educa- 
tion, superintendent of schools, mayor and five 
citizens of the West Side shall be trustees for 
the Sage Library. 

Six hundred dollars a year shall be raised 
by the Council for the annual addition of books. 
Enough money to pay the librarian and janitor 
shall also be raised. 



CHAPTER IX. 



Bay County's Lumber, Salt and Coal Industries and Transportation Facilities. 

Pleasant it was, when woods were green 

And winds were soft and low, 
To lie amid some sylvan scene. 
Where, the long drooping boughs between, 
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen 

Alternate come and go; 

Or where the denser grove receives 

No sunlight from above, 
But the dark foliage interweaves 
In one unbroken roof of leaves, 
Underneath whose sloping eaves, 

The shadows hardly move. 

Before me rose an avenue 

Of tall and sombrous pines ; 
Abroad their fan-like branches grew. 
And, where the sunlight darted through, 
Spread a vapor soft and blue. 

In long and sloping lines. 

— Longfellow. 



lumber. 

T/ie Pine Tree's Lament! 1 am the mon- 
arch of the forest. My proud head far over- 
steps my smaller, and yet ambitious, compan- 
ions. In vain do they wish to become my 
equal. With dismay do they reahze their 
inabihty to do so, for 1 am the giant, and they 
the pigmies. Beneath my branches may they 
take refuge from tlie impending storm but 
never to become as great and as majestic as I. 
Fortunate is it that they are small. Little do 
they realize the terrible fate which awaits such 



as I. Were I of the pigmy family, I would 
be passed over in silence, to remain in the 
enjoyment of the rest of my days. But great 
beings like myself are never allowed to die 
from natural causes. Nay! We are plucked 
like the budding rose in the bloom of youth. 
The winds of a hundred winters have whistled 
through my branches. On and on might I live, 
but for the relentless, unceasing ravages of the 
woodsmen's army. My time will soon come. 
The progress of the so-called civilization de- 
mands my downfall. And then my present 
envious fellows may have the satisfaction of 



2l6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



seeing my life ebb. I can foresee my fate. In 
the autumn the army of woodsmen will invade 
the quiet of the forest, and with their glisten- 
ing axes will begin chopping at my very base. 
My thick coating of bark, that has protected 
me through the chilly blasts of winter, cannot 
withstand their sharp blades. My body is 
penetrated after a succession of powerful 
blows, and a few strokes of the cross-cut saw 
complete the mischief. I totter, tremble, and 
then fall with a creaking, crashing noise, ending 
in a heavy thud that thunderingly echoes 
through the forest. I am down, and at the 
mercy of those who so ruthlessly ended my 
existence. They pounce upon me like wild 
beasts upon a fawn. At their mercy as I am, 
they stand upon me and gloat over their 
superiority. In my fall my branches bring 
neighboring trees to the ground as well, and 
with these in my grasp I had hoped to strike 
my destroyers, but their agility and foresight 
kept them out of reach. Standing on either 
side of m}' prostrate form, these knights of the 
axe and saw measure my body into various 
lengths, and to make my destruction more com- 
plete, they saw through my side until my limbs 
are severed and my body cut into as many 
lengths as they deem fit. The top that once tow- 
ered above the forest is left to an ignominous 
end. Each of the several portions of my body 
are inspected and then the bark from a portion 
of one side is stripped ofif, and trampled under 
foot. Then a sleigh with a team of oxen or 
horses comes along. Onto this sleigh am I 
bolted with a ponderous chain, and in an 
instant, at the crack of the blacksnake whip, I 
am hauled out into the skidway. This I find 
is two logs laid parallel and about 1 1 feet apart. 
On these am I lifted to remain until the com- 
ing of snow and ice of another winter. Were I 
near a winding river, I should be piled upon its 
banks, to remain until the rush of waters in 



spring would carry me on their bosom to its 
mouth, there to be imprisoned in a boom, until 
such times as my captors decide to haul me over 
the blue waters of the bay to the great metrop- 
olis on the mightier ri\-er. Were there no river 
I shoukl find the skidway on a cut by the rail- 
way. With hundreds of my species I would be 
piled on a flat car and whirled at great speed 
up grades, around dizzy curves, through vil- 
lages and towns, until here too I reach this, 
self-same city, where from a high trestle I am 
dumped unceremoniously into the dark waters 
of some mill boom. As I bob about some man 
conies along with a long pole, in which is a 
sharp brad, and hook, with which he catches 
and drags me alongside a row of other unfor- 
tunates. Then I am hauled a prisoner to a 
place which buzzes like a beehive. Some rude 
jerks land me alongside of an inclined plane, 
going up to and into a huge building whence 
come all this noise and confusion. Without 
warning a sharp hook of the continuous chain 
catches my head and I am forcibly dragged 
up the sluiceway into the noisy beehive. Then 
two spiteful, ugly-looking, heavy sticks of 
wood, rounded on top, and having several 
sharp pieces of iron on the side, suddenly 
spring out of their hiding places in the floor and 
strike me a terrific blow on the side, sending 
me upon an iron carriage. Two men on board 
clinch me with iron teeth, and hold me so that 
I cannot get away. A signal is given, the car- 
riage begins to move, and in an instant a saw 
is burying itself into my body. This operation 
is repeated a few times, 1 am turned occas- 
ionally so that my sides may be inspected and 
soon I have lost my identity. I am no longer 
a proud tree, but merely a squared piece of tim- 
ber known as a "cant." 

Such in truth was the course of all the 
majestic pines that once made a "black forest" 
of all this valley and the country for hundreds- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



217 



of miles to the northward. True, this lone 
tree must have escaped the earlier visitations, 
for the sawmills and logging camps underwent 
great changes in the course of years. The 
lumbermen sought to save the waste, reduce 
the loss and diminish the cost of production. 
Wonderful labor-saving machinery replaced 
the original primitive methods. The capacity 
of the mills was doubled and trebled by sim- 
ple devices suggested by the ingenuity of indi- 
viduals and the experience of years. 

The fine logs first go to the band-saw, 
where the operator cuts each board to the best 
advantage as the face of the log may indicate 
after a few cuts. At this point we have the 
wide, thick sidings, known as "uppers." The 
central portion, probably 12 inches through, is 
passed over on rollers to the gang feed-rolls, 
which carry it into the series of gang-saws, 
that saw it into the ordinary stock boards of 
modern lumberyards. The wide, thick uppers 
or sidings, varying in size, are passed aver 
live rollers to a parallel edger, where two trans- 
fer chains take it. The skidway operator will 
set the saws so that the best possible quantity 
of clear lumber will be obtained. Usually 
only the wane, sap and bark is taken ofif the 
two edges. The pieces taken off are of var- 
ious widths — in Initt logs from one to eight 
inches thick. These are cut into various 
lengths for staves, lath, sashstuff and shorts. 
The loss incurred here by the old mills would 
today more than pay for the running of the 
whole plant. Expert sawyers get the good 
boards squared at the correct length with the 
first cut. Next the boards are rapidly sorted, 
the square-edge stock boards go to the trimmer, 
while the others go to the edger. Expert 
trimmers next remove all shaky ends, rotten 
butts, and waney ends, so as to be fit for mar- 
keting, as first, second, or third grades. Ex- 
pert sorters next pile the boards on separate 
12 



cars, according to grades, and these are 
I)ushed over the tramway to their respective 
piles. About 75 per cent, of the output of 
modern sawmills are stock boards. The rest 
are mill culls, for home consumption, and 
shipping culls for shipment. The slabs which 
years ago went to waste in the refuse burners 
are to-day cut up for staves, lath, and shingles 
or box boards, and the remainder is cut in stove 
lengths for fire-wood, and commands good 
prices. Fortunes have been w'asted in the old, 
crude manner of sawing logs and the reckless 
slaughter of the pines, when only the best was 
preserved, and all else went to waste. 

When Judge Albert Miller laid out the 
prospective village of Portsmouth, he realized 
that his first requirement would be a sawmill, 
to supply the lumber for the homes of the 
prospective settlers, for there seemed to be tim- 
ber enough along the river to supply all the 
then known world. In 1836 Cromwell Bar- 
ney began the erection of the framework for 
the sawmill, while Judge Miller went to Huron, 
Ohio, to buy a second-hand engine and machin- 
ery. The influx of immigrants from New- 
York and the East kept all the lake craft busy 
and, as it was then November, it took Judge 
]\Iiller two w-eeks at Detroit before he bought 
the schooner "Elizabeth Ward" for $2,000 to 
make the trip, he to furnish his own crew. 
After placing all the machinery aboard, to- 
gether with several thousand dollars worth of 
provisions, the boat started up the Detroit 
River, November 22. 1836. The Indian trail 
to Flint was deep with mud. and he had to 
leave his horse at Flint, and continue home 
on foot. When he reached home he found the 
river frozen over solidly, and no sign from the 
vessel ! Daily for a week he went to the mouth 
of the river on the ice, but to no purpose, — 
the boat never came. Finally he learned that 
his captain and four $2.50 per day sailors had 



2lS 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



tied up at Port Huron and were living easy on 
his supplies! Judge Miller made another 
trying trip to Port Huron, where he fired the 
crew, and arranged to have the machinery 
hauled over on sleds, which had to cross the 
wilds of St. Clair, Macomb, Oakland, Genes- 
see and Saginaw counties, a lurid experience, 
full of hazards and hardships! But by April 
I, 1837, the mill was ready for operations, and 
that day the first pine log was cut within the 
borders of Bay County. The mill erected 
under such primitive and trying circumstances 
was soon silenced by the panic of 1837, and all 
the fond hopes of the farseeing mill operator 
were shattered for awhile. 

In 1841 James McCormick and his son, 
James J. McCormick, came from the Titta- 
bawassee Indian field, and reopened the mill. 
They shipped the first boat-load of lumber to 
Detroit in 1842, the cut being 60 per cent, 
uppers, for which they received $8 per thous- 
and, one third down, the rest in eight and 10 
months! The "Conneaut Packet," Capt. 
George Raby commanding, carried this first 
load of lumljer out of the wood-bound stream. 
Thousands of cargoes followed in after years, 
following mainly the course of that first boat- 
load down the Detroit River. James J. Mc- 
Cormick operated the mill until 1849, when the 
gold fever called him to California. It was 
destroyed by fire in 1862. 

In 1844-45 James Fraser, in association 
with Cromwell Barney and Israel Catlin, 
erected the water-mill at Kawkawlin. In 
1845-46 the first sawmill was built in Bay City 
proper, by James Fraser, Hopkins and Pome- 
roy, on the site where 60 years after, Samuel 
G. M. Gates is still busy converting logs into 
lumber! In 1847 James Fraser and Israel 
Catlin built the mill, later known as the Jen- 
nison & Rouse mill, on Water street, between 
9th street and McKinley avenue. More than 



a dozen mills sprang up along the river front 
from 1850 to 1854, and by 1857 there were 
already 14 mills, the output of each mill aver- 
aging from 1,500,000 to 4,000,000 feet per 
annum. 

When Bay City began its corporate exist- 
ence in 1865, there were 18 sawmills in opera- 
tion on the East Side, six on the West Side 
and one at Kawkawlin. Here are those pioneer 
mills with their output in that memorable year : 
Nathan B. Bradley, 6,800,000 feet; Fay & 
Gates, 4,500,000; Samuel Pitts, 6,800,000; 
Watrous & Southworth, 3,000,000; Young, 
1,200,000; Miller & Post, 4,000,000; Peter & 
Lewis, 4,000,000; James J. McCormick, 4,- 
.400,000; J. F. Rust Company 4,000,000; 
James Watson, 3,000,000; William Peter, 7,- 
200,000; Miller & Company, 6.000,000; H. M. 
Bradley, 4,000,000; Jennison & Catlin, 3,500,- 
000; James Shearer, 6,815,000; Dolson & 
Walker, 1,500,000; I\IcEwan & Fraser, 6,000,- 
000; Braddock, 3,000,000. Hon. Nathan B. 
Bradley, Samuel G. ]\I. Gates, and Charles E. 
Jennison alone remain, to celebrate with us 
this 40th anniversary of that season. On the 
West Side, the Huron Company cut 3,180,000 
feet; Sage & McGraw, 9,000,000; Drake 
Brothers, 3,000,000; Bolton, 5,500,000; Tay- 
lor & Moulthrop, 6,000,000; Moore & Smith, 
7,000.000; while the Kawkawlin mill cut 5,- 
000,000 feet. 

George W. Hotchkiss, historian of Bay 
City in 1876, the centennial year, in accordance 
with the suggestion made to the cities of the 
country by President Rutherford B. Hayes, 
speaks of those early mills in the Lumberman's 
Exchange as follows: "These sawmills all 
used gate, muley or circular saws, producing 
200,000,000 feet of lumber and 2,000,000 
cords of sawdust annually. The saws were 
six-gauge circulars, swayed to four-gauge, and 
the sawdust heap rivaled the lumber pile!" 



AND REPRESEXTATIVE CITIZENS. 



219 



Sage & }kIcGra\v were the first to introduce 
the modern gang-saw. In 1880 there were 32 
sawmills, but their capacity was three times 
that of the 24 mills along the river here in 
1865. In 1865 it cost almost as much to 
handle the sawdust and slabs as it did to handle 
the lumber produced, but all this changed with 
the general introduction of the small-gauge 
gang-saws. In 1853 a local mill-owner 
wagered a bottle of champagne that his circu- 
lar-saw would average 1,500 feet per hour all 
day ! He won, but it took his edger crew half 
the night to clear up the lumber such an unus- 
ual cut had buried them under 1 The gang- 
saws changed all this, averaging from 6,000 
to 9,000 feet per hour, and the edgers cut now 
with the double edger. 

The list of mills on the river here had the 
new additions, in 1875, of Brooks & Adams, 
Charles M. Smith & Company and Laderbach 
Brothers, Salzburg; Keystone Salt & Lumber 
Company, Banks; and Chapin & Barber, John 
Carrier Company. Hay. Butman & Company, 
Eddy, Avery & Company, S. H. Webster, 
Pitts & Cranage, Folsom & Arnold. Rust & 
Company, Ames Brothers, and J. INI. Rouse, on 
the East Side, with cuts for the year running 
from 1,000.000 to the 15.000,000 feet, cut by 
the Sage mill. In 1879 the West Side had the 
mills of R. J. Briscoe, E. J. Hargrave, who 
in 1905 is still sawing away at the good old 
mill on the Middle Ground ; L. L. Hotchkiss, 
Murphy & Dorr, W. H. Malone, now interested 
in B. H. Briscoe & Company; B. W. Mer- 
rick, and Peter Smith & Sons. The junior 
members of the last named firm, Peter C. and 
Charles J. Smith, are still in the harness in 
1905. The East Side had added the mills of 
F. E. Bradley, S. McLean & Son, Miller & 
Lewis, A. Chesbrough and the mammoth 
plant of T. H. McGraw & Company. The cut 
of the Sage mill in 1880 was 29,388,976 feet. 



while McGraw passed this great record easily 
with 34,000,000 feet! The total for 1880 was 
422,783,141 feet of lumber, in addition to 
lath, staves, shingles, etc. ! The billion mark 
was next set and passed by the collective efforts 
of all the mills in Bay County. What wonder 
that the forests vanished like a dream of the 
night before this onslaught, and by 1885 the 
question of log supply began to haunt the 
plans of the mill owners and operators. Ten 
years later. Congress cut off the only remaining 
supply of pine logs in Canada, and the death 
knell had sovinded for the main industry here 
for the 60 years since the first mill was started 
by Judge Miller. 

As we look back over the lumber data for 
those 60 years, we cannot help but marvel at 
the good fortune attending its development. 
For after all there must be a demand for lum- 
ber, before so many sawmills could be profit- 
ably operated. And the growth of our lumber 
industry during all those years merely kept 
pace with the growth and de\-elopment of the 
country at large, and more particularly of the 
Middle West. New wood-working industries 
sprang up, demanding the product of our mills, 
and seldom was there much of the manufac- 
tured product left unsold upon the river docks 
during all those years. Since these cities were 
then altogether dependent upon the lumber 
industry, the weal and woes of the lumebr 
trade were of vital importance to the entire 
community. The artisan, mechanic, laborer, 
merchant, and farmer, all felt the beneficent 
influence of good lumber prices and ready 
sales. 

Until 1885 the mill workers were content 
to work 12 hours each day during the summer 
season, and each winter most of them went 
into the lumber woods and logging camps for 
the same employers. With the advent of 
shorter hours of labor for many crafts all over 



220 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



the country, and the very evident hmitations 
of Michigan's future log supply, the sawmill 
employes also sought to improve their working 
conditions. "Ten hours or no sawdust" was 
their slogan, and for a few weeks in that year 
the mills were idle. But prices of lumber were 
high, the demand great, experienced sawyers 
scarce, and the men were eventually granted 
the lo hour work day, which prevails in the 
various branches of the lumber industry all 
over the country to this day. 

With the advent of other and varied indus- 
tries, the hardwood logging camps have found 
it quite ditficult to find swampers, skidders, and 
sawyers who understand the business and are 
willing to go into the woods, and consequently 
wages for this work have also materially in- 
creased in recent years. 

Considerable logging is still being done in 
Garfield, Gibson and Mount Forest townships, 
supplying the woodenware works and hoop fac- 
tories. Portaljle sawmills move about the west- 
ern townships, clearing the land now wanted for 
farming and furnishing the lumber for the 
homes, barns and fences of the rural inhabi- 
tants. These wooded townships have for years 
supplied the oak timber for Davidson's ship- 
yard, and thousands of feet have been shipped 
abroad, much of it going to England in earlier 
years. The oak timber was very large and of 
the best quality, but is now almost exhausted 
in this immediate vicinity. Tamarack, for 
upper deck beams and similar ship-building 
purposes, plenty of fine oak timber, and tall 
straight pines for masts and spars, made the 
construction of wooden ships here both easy 
and profitable. For many years, oak timber 
delivered in the river brought $165 per i.ooo 
cubic feet. Red oak figures to this day largely 
in the manufacture of staves and is still quite 
plentiful in the territory tributary to Bay City. 

Since brick and asphalt are the favored 



paving materials, the cedar of this vicinity 
goes largely into railroad work and fence 
posts. 

Bird's-eye and other maple abound in this 
vicinity, as do birch, beech, hemlock, white 
ash, butternut and similar woods of great value 
for the furniture and carriage-building busi- 
ness, but until now such lumber has been 
shipped to Grand Rapids and other furniture 
manufacturing centers. Apparently no one 
has ever thought of- saving all that freight on 
the timber and lumber, by putting up those 
factories in the midst of this timber supply, 
cheap fuel and our easy and cheap shipping 
facilities ! Elm and black ash still abound 
here, and are used extensively in the manufac- 
ture of barrels, staves and hoops. 

The soft woods, such as bass, poplar, etc., 
also abound hereabouts, making excellent pulp 
for making paper, and several of the less well 
situated and smaller cities to the north have 
within recent j'ears erected large tanneries and 
paper pulp mills, while somehow, here too, 
Bay City's preeminent advantages have been 
totally overlooked. 

Plaining mills and box factories have to 
some extent replaced the great sawmills, but 
there is still much room for kindred wood- 
working industries. 

The rejuvenated Bay City Board of Trade 
should make a study of these industries, their 
source of raw material supply, and similar ad- 
vantages and seek to secure some of these mod- 
ern plants for this city. \\'ith the combined 
efforts of both sides of the river, there is still 
a chance . to develop industries for the finer 
manipulation of the remaining timber and lum- 
ber supply, which once established are bound 
to bring kindred institutions to this locality. 
Pine is no longer king here, but there are still 
thousands of acres of other and equally valu- 
able timber tracts within easy hauling distance 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



221 



of Bay City, and with proper study and en- 
couragement, new and even more profitable 
branches of the lumber industry could be 
brought here. This is conclusively proven by 
the roster of our sawmills still in operation in 
1905, with their constantly increasing business 
in mixed hardwood, as enumerated in the 
leading industries of Greater Bay City. 

A roster of the sawmills still in operation 
in 1905, the survivors of our "Piny Days," 
will include the Courval mill, the Detroit mill 
and those of Wyllie & Buell, J. J. Flood, Knee- 
land-Bigelow Company, E. J. Hargrave, J. R. 
Hitclicock, Kern Manufacturing Company, 
Can;pbell-Brown Lumber Company, and Sam- 
uel G. M. Gates. The log supply comes en- 
tirely from the north by rail, branch roads tap- 
ping the very heart of the timber belt, and the 
mills are no longer dependent upon the snow 
and ice of winter or the floods of spring to haul 
and flood their log supply i>recariously to the 
mill boom. The W. D. Young & Company's 
hardwood plant in Salzburg is one of the largest 
of its kind in the world. The lumber-yards of 
Mershon, Schuette, Parker & Company, E. B. 
Foss & Company, and Bradley, Miller & Com- 
pany, the last named on the West Side, are 
immense institutions, whose busy docks are 
vi\id reminders of the palmiest days of this 
great industry. All have large planing-mills 
and accessories, where the lumber is finished for 
the finer trade. A score of smaller plants are 
engaged in the same line of the lumber trade, 
and altogether Bay County still ranks high in 
the country's statistics of the lumber industry. 



SALT. 

The act admitting Michigan into the Union 
of States, passed by Congress in 1836, provided 
among other things that all salt springs in the 



State, not exceeding 12 in number, with six 
sections of land adjoining each, might be 
selected by the State, and in pursuance thereof 
the Legislature in July, 1836, authorized the 
Governor to make the selection. Most of the 
lands selected were in the Grand River basin, 
one was selected at the mouth of the Salt River 
on the Tittabawassee. Dr. Houghton, State 
geologist, commenced boring for salt and con- 
tinued until June 15, 1838, when his appropria- 
tion was exhausted and the work abandoned. 
It was Dr. Houghton's opinion at that time 
that the center of the salt basin was the Sagi- 
naw Valley. 

In 1859 Judge James Birney, of Bay City, 
succeeded in getting a bill through the Legisla- 
ture providing for a bounty of 10 cents per 
bushel on salt. This stimulated more boring, 
and in June, i860, the flow of brine was struck 
600 feet beneath the surface. All the business 
men in the valley at once came down with the 
"salt fever!" 

The Portsmouth Salt Company was organ- 
ized March 13. i860, with James J. McCor- 
mick, Appleton Stevens, B. F. Beckwith, A. D. 
Braddock, Albert Miller, Charles E. Jennison, 
W. Daglish and William R. McCormick as in- 
corporators. The Bay City Salt Company 
filed its articles of association May 18, i860, 
James Fraser, D. H. Fitzhugh, PI. M. Fitz- 
hugh, Curtis Munger and Algernon S. Munger 
being the incorporators. In June, 1861, the 
South End company produced the first salt in 
Bay County. The Bay City company had 
their well on the site of the Michigan Pipe 
Company's plant. The two were sunk pur- 
posely far apart, as there were many people 
who believed that the supply of brine would 
soon be exhausted at the rate wells were going 
down. 

However it has since been found that there 
is an inexhaustible supply of brine rock under- 



222 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



lying Bay County, and that a limitless supply 
of fine brine may be secured for the mere 
pumping. For more than 40 years this pump- 
ing has been going on here, and the supply is 
as good and plenty as ever. 

The North American Chemical Company 
came here chiefly because of this flow of brine, 
and they Avould also like to secure rock salt 
for some of their chemicals. In 1901 they 
bored to a depth of 3,500 feet, without striking 
the salt rock, and the drill becoming fast, the 
work was abandoned. Another attempt is 
soon to be made, as geologists are satisfied 
that this salt rock does exist. The coal mine 
shafts have not touched it because they do not 
go down that far. Oddly enough, the boring 
for these salt-wells all went through the exten- 
sive vein of bituminous coal, but the borers 
were intent on salt, and passed everything else 
by. 

The brine of the Bay County salt-wells 
stands at 96 and 98 by the salinmeter, and is 
quite free from troublesome impurities, or 
"bitter water" as the salt trade calls them. Dr. 
S. S. Garrigues was the first salt inspector ap- 
pointed by the Governor, and from that day 
to this the inspection of the salt has been rigid, 
and the supply to the markets of the world 
correspondingly pure and wholesome. The 
cheap means of securing good barrels here pre- 
sented from the first a ready and good means 
of salt packing. 

The original kettle system of evaporation 
early gave way to the pan system, where the 
exhaust steam from the sawmills did the work 
of evaporation. This kept the cost of produc- 
tion at a minimum, and provided new uses for 
the waste materials of the sawmills. The brine 
of Canada is equally good, and labor cheaper. 
but by this means the local salt-wells managed 
to compete with them successfully. The ear- 
liest salt shipments brought $1.40 per barrel, 



and the cost of manufacture in connection with 
the sawmills was computed at from 60 to 80 
cents per barrel. This included all labor, cost 
of barrel and packing. It will readily be seen 
that there was a good margin at first, but the 
price gradually came down. 

Bay County salt has long been distin- 
guished in the world's markets, because it does 
not cake in the barrels, a characteristic of all 
rock salts. This non-caking quality makes Bay 
County salt very desirable, but it has been 
found that the producers of caking rock salt 
have placed false labels on their product, hav- 
ing it appear as Saginaw Valley salt. This in- 
duced the Legislature in April, 1905. to send 
a committee to Chicago and other salt shipping 
points to investigate these impositions, with a 
view to passing a law making this a criminal 
offense. 

The salt produced by the North American 
Chemical Company is shipped almost exclu- 
sively to Chicago and Duluth, in barrels and in 
bulk, as the trade demands, the shipments be- 
ing made in large quantities by water. Their 
new loading device will handle 100 tons of salt 
per hour, and will expedite their salt business. 
This mammoth plant now has 27 wells in op- 
eration, all being down i.ooo feet, and the 
blocks supplied with the very latest devices for 
securing absolutely pure salt. The results are 
naturally far in, advance of the earlier salt- 
wells and blocks. 

The mill-owners were quick to see the 
profits of running salt-wells in connection with 
their sawmills, and by 1865 practically every 
sawmill had its salt-block annex. In 1865 over 
$700,000 was invested in the salt industry 
here, and the output exceeded 200,000 barrels. 
As the mills increased, so did the salt-wells, 
and in 1880 the production in Bay County was 
more than 900,000 barrels. In 1882 the State 
inspection was made on 1,158,279 barrels, of 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



223 



which 439,996 barrels were shipped by water, 
and over 550,000 barrels by rail. 

The price declined steadily, as the produc- 
tion increased, and in 1882 was down to 70 
cents per barrel. In 1876 the salt manufactur- 
ers organized the Salt Association of Michi- 
gan, Judge Albert Miller being vice-president, 
and Thomas Cranage, treasurer, with John 
^IcEwan, J. R. Hall, J. L. Dolsen, H. M. 
Bradley and H. C. Moore, of Bay City, on the 
executive board. The capital stock was $200,- 
000, in 8,000 shares at $25 each. Bay City 
had 15 out of 48 share-holders. Every man- 
ufacturer in becoming a share-holder of the as- 
sociation is obliged to execute and deliver a 
contract for all salt manufactured by him, or 
a lease of his salt manufacturing property. 
Each member makes salt only on the associa- 
tion's account, while the board of directors has 
the power to determine the rate of advance in 
the price of salt, and it also has the power of 
appointing traveling or resident agents for the 
sale of the salt. Such was this "Salt Trust" 
in 1881, a very prototype of the much abused 
combination of industry and capital, — the trust 
of 1905. But here the consumer could not 
complain, because the price of table salt has 
always been extremely low, owing to the un- 
limited supply of this valley and its cheap pro- 
duction. The remaining salt-wells are inde- 
pendent of the salt trust organized in the East 
some years ago. 

Salt is given some attention in the 22d an- 
nual report, Michigan Bureau of Labor, for 
the year 1904. The report quotes the rapid in- 
crease of the salt industry in the salt basin dur- 
ing the palmy days of the lumber industry. It 
goes on to say that coal has to a large extent 
become the fuel for operating the remaining 
salt-wells, and unlike many other kindred in- 
du.stries, which were crippled by the exit of the 
lumber industry, the manufacture of salt seems 



to be little affected. Bay County now has four 
of the 41 salt manufacturing institutions in 
Michigan. With coal proving so easy of access 
in the salt basin of Central Michigan, the State 
authorities anticipate the gradual revival of 
the salt industry, as many savings are now ac- 
complished that in Michigan will make up the 
difference in the cost of fuel. This ofificial re- 
port for the year 1904 shows four plants in 
operation in Bay County, which have been in 
business for an average of 12 years. The ag- 
gregate cost of these four plants is given at 
$106,000, an average of $26,500 per plant; ag- 
gregate annual cost of repairs, $10,472. an 
average of $2,618 per plant; aggregate daily 
capacity, 1,445 barrels, an average of 361 per 
plant; aggregate number of barrels made in 
1904, 272,502, an average of 68,125, while in 
1903 the aggregate was 298,986 barrels, an 
average of 74.746. Thirty-six per cent, of the 
product was sold in bulk, 47 per cent, in bar- 
rels and 17 per cent, in table packages; 55 per 
cent, of the output in Bay County was sold in 
the State. The average daily wages were 
$1.67 and 142 people were employed. 



CO.\L. 

The historian of Bay City in 1876 had his 
suspicions that underneath his feet at no great 
depth was a good layer of bituminous coal, for 
had not the drills for salt-wells often brought 
up bits of coal from strata of unknown thick- 
ness? Even before that date Corunna, 40 
miles to the south, had a mine in full opera- 
tion. Outcroppings of coal were also found 
all about the valley, particularly to the south 
and east. But the populace at Bay City was 
too busy slaughtering the pines, to care much 
whether that vein of coal was three inches or 
three feet thick. The refuse of the sawmills 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



furnished plenty and cheap fuel, hence there 
was no particular demand for cheap coal. But 
the chronicler of 1876 was certain that coal did 
exist here, and he was ecjually certain, that 
when \eins worth working were opened, iron 
manufacture in all its forms would come to re- 
place the lumber industry. His first surmise 
has since been amply verified, and we heartily 
endorse his belief, that the iron and copper ore 
of the Lake Superior region could be brought 
here cheaper than to any of its present manu- 
facturing points, having all the other advan- 
tages offered by their present location, and 
some good ones in addition thereto. Hence it 
would seem that the business interests of 
Greater Bay City should also take this propo- 
sition in hand, through its Board of Trade. 
Once convinced that we have all the facilities 
for their purpose, the smelters and iron manu- 
facturers will not be slow to take advantage of 
them. Let us remember how minutely the beet 
sugar business had to be demonstrated before a 
single factory was secured, and let it be noted 
how speedily these sugar factories multiplied 
in Michigan, when once the success of the en- 
terprise was assured ! We predict that similar 
results will follow the studv of the iron indus- 
try, as applied to local conditions with refer- 
ence to the source of the raw material and the 
easy access to the markets of the world, either 
by water or rail. 

This has in fact been the experience of the 
coal industry itself in Bay County. When in 
1897 Alexander Zagelmeyer and a few others 
had proved by systematic and scientific borings 
that coal existed in paying cjuantities under the 
prosperous farms of Monitor and Frankenlust 
township, when in that year the first shaft was 
sunk for the original Michigan coal mine, and 
a vein some four feet thick was worked, with 
very little trouble from water, the future of the 
bituminous coal industry in Bay County was 



assured ! Men and capital were ready at once 
to follow this lead, and in a few years Bay 
County had 14 coal mines! 

We find in the United States government 
report on our country's mineral resources, that 
there are 335,000 square miles of the bitu- 
minous coal area. Michigan is called the 
Northern field, and its coal area is limited to 
the central part of the Lower Peninsula. The 
discovery of paying coal veins here in 1897 
stimulated the sinking of coal shafts in all 
parts of this area, so that in 1904 Michigan 
ranks 22d in the list of coal-producing States, 
where eight years before she had no rating at 
all. We find in the State geological survey for 
1904 the following general arrangement of the 
Lower Michigan rocks : Drift for 65 feet, slate 
50 to 100 feet. Upper Carbon coal group. Then 
Parma, 100 feet; Gypsum, 300; Marshall 
sandstone, 75 ; Coldwater shales, 800 : Berea 
sandstones, 65 ; Antrim shales, 225 ; Traverse 
group, 350; Dundee limestone, 100; Monroe 
beds, 700, etc. The State geologist deplores 
the fact that out of the numerous deep wells 
put down in Bay County, only a few have pre- 
served records of the rock formations trav- 
ersed. 

The deepest hole in Michigan's surface, 
aside from the deep copper mines of the Upper 
Peninsula, was the drill for rock salt of the 
North American Chemical Company in the 
South End, which reached a depth of over 
3,500 feet before work on it was abandoned. 
Drift was found for 120 feet; coal measures, 
444 ; then 20 feet of limestone ; and at a depth 
of 586 feet the flow of 85 per cent, brine. Then 
came sandrock down to 635 feet; sandy shale 
for the next 25 feet; blue shale for 40 feet; 
and at a depth of 712 feet came 10 feet of 
gypsum. Then came 98 feet of blue shale; 10 
of hard limerock, 80 of sandstone, and there, 
at a depth of 920 feet, the second flow of brine. 



AND REPRES£XTATI\'E CITIZENS. 



227 



100 per cent. All of Bay County's present salt- 
wells, by the way, reach this second flow of 
brine. Then came 135 feet of red and white 
shale, and so on down to 3,508 feet. Similar 
rock formations are registered at Kawkawlin 
and a salt-well in Hampton. The State geol- 
ogist is still confident that rock salt exists be- 
low that free flow of brine, but if it is more than 
3,500 feet below the surface, it would not pay 
to secure it. Hence the attempt was given up, 
but the experiment of the North American 
Chemical Company has pro\'en of much benefit 
to future geological surveys at such great 
depth in other parts of the State. 

But to return to the discovery of a paying 
vein of soft coal underneath Bay County, and 
its development. The Michigan mine was 
quickly followed by the sinking of the Monitor 
mine shaft. Expert coal miners were brought 
here from Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania, and 
coal leases were sought among the farmers of 
that vicinity with feverish flurry. At first the 
coal mining rights were sold outright by the 
farmers. Intt of late years the farmers merely 
execute long term leases, with a proviso, that 
they get a royalty on all coal mined. 

Handy Brothers established the first mine 
in Bangor townshi]), following it soon after 
with a second shaft in the same vicinity. 

Then E. B. Foss and George D. Jackson 
sank a shaft on the historic ground of Oa-at-ka 
Beach, near the mouth of the Kawkawlin 
River. Here they found the finest vein of coal 
in all Bay County, and it is to this day one of 
the most productive mines in Michigan. The 
great danger is the flooding of the mine, as the 
bay is but a few hundred yards to the east. 
The last time this hap]iened was in April, 
1905, when the mine had to be shut down, 
owing to the rush of waters. This mine is 
splendidly equi])])cd with all modern appli- 
ances, and its pumping apparatus would keep 



an ordinary mine clear at all times. The flow 
of water gradually recedes, and then mining is 
resumed. 

The Pittsburg mine shaft was sunk near 
the pretty village of .\melith, the Valley mine 
near Frankenlust, where are also the Bay mine 
No. 2, the Hecla mine and, still nearer the city 
limits, the Central mine, while the Salzburg 
mine is located near the very center of that 
suburb, and the United City mine is also within 
the city limits on North Union street. The 
W'olverine mines Nos. 2 and 3 are in Williams 
township, the farthest west of the city, and the 
new Auburn mine is located in the same vicin- 
ity. An excellent vein exists thereabouts, and 
the Midland Branch of the Michigan Central 
Railroad furnishes easy transportation to the 
miners and the coal. 

The latest working addition to Bay 
County's mines is the What-Cheer mine in 
Merritt township, 10 miles southeast of Bay 
City, located and operated by E. B. Foss. So 
confident is Mr. Foss in the excellence of that 
East Side vein, that he is even now arranging 
with other capitalists to build a railroad 
through the "Thumb" to Port Huron, to 
handle his coal. Rights of way have been se- 
cured, as well as an entrance into the lake har- 
bor at Port Huron, witli terminals in this city, 
so that this mine will mean the fulfillment of a 
long cherished wish to have railroad connection 
with Tuscola, Sanilac, Huron and St. Clair 
counties. 

The government geological survey for 
1904 gives the coal area for Michigan at 1 1.300 
square miles. The coal output in Michigan 
for 1898 was 315,722 short tons; 624,708 in 
1899; 849.475 in 1900: 1,241,241 in 1901 ; 
964,718 in 1902; and 1,367,619 in 1903. The 
falling ofif in 1902 was due to the strike of the 
coal miners, which for many weeks closed down 
all the mines. The value of the output at the 



228 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



mines for 1903 was given at \\'ashington as 
$2,707,527. Owing to the shortage of the fuel 
supply in 1903, the price of this coal advanced 
from $1.71 in 1902 to $1.97 per ton in 1903. 
The miners averaged 171 days in 1902, against 
247 working days in 1903. The average num- 
ber of men employed in Michigan was 2,276 in 
1901 ; 2,344 in 1902 and 2,768 in 1903. The 
average production per miner was 494 tons in 

1901 ; 411 tons in 1902 and 545 tons in 1903. 
The working day in all the Michigan coal 
mines has been from the first eight hours. 

The coal production of Bay County in 

1902 was 248,645 tons, of which the local con- 
sumption was 29,596 tons, 9,916 tons were 
consumed at the mines, and 209,133 tons were 
loaded at the mines for shipment. The total 
value was $410,615 ; average price, $1.65 ; aver- 
age days in operation, 149; and 660 miners 
found employment. In 1903 there was loaded 
at the mines for shipment, 288,284 tons; 
24,215 tons were sold for local consumption, 
and 12,522 tons were consumed at the mines, 
making a total output for 1903 of 325,021 
tons. The total value of Bay County's coal 
output for 1903 was $607,091, with $1.87 per 
ton, 206 working days and a force of 714 
skilled miners. These mineral statistics do^ not 
include the many workingmen used in and 
about these coal mines, but merely the machine 
and pick miners. 

The average price of this coal in Michigan 
was $1.62 in 1896; $1.46 in 1897; $1.47 in 
1898; $1.39 in 1899; $1.48 in 1900; $1.41 in 
1901 ; $1.71 in 1902; and $1.97 in 1903. 

It will be seen that the opening of new 
mines did not reduce the price of the coal at 
the mines. On the contrary, the price has ma- 
terially advanced and quite beyond the per 
cent, of increase in cost of mining. It follows 
that more mines would be operated under 
these conditions, if there was a readv market 



for the coal at these prices. But either the 
present mine operators hold their commodity 
at too high a figure, or else the railroads, upon 
whom the mines are dependent for moving 
their output, have discriminating rates in favor 
of the older coal fields of Ohio. This latter 
appears to be the case, for the Ohio mines de- 
liver coal much cheaper in Detroit than the 
Michigan mines can. 

It would seem that these mines will have to 
look to water transportation to meet this ad- 
verse condition. It is apparent that the coal 
will have to be hauled from the mines to the 
river wharves, and that the same railroads now 
own these tracks, but an industry with such a 
bright future must rise to the occasion ! The 
several mines, or all in one section by collec- 
tive action, will have to own and operate their 
own branch roads from the mines to deep 
water, and then their transportation problem 
will be solved and solved right. The mere de- 
cision to do so may bring the established roads 
to see the error of their ways, and so insure the 
Bay County coal as liberal and fair treatment 
as is accorded the Ohio and Pennsylvania pro- 
duct. 

Great as has been the growth of the coal 
industry in Bay County in a short seven years, 
there is still but a crude beginning. The known 
coal area of Bay County extends from its west- 
ern border to Munger on the east — 20 miles 
from east to west — and from Amelith to the 
Kawkawlin River — 12 miles from north to 
south ! The vein in all this region varies but 
little, and mining is possible under identical 
conditions. Since the coal lies so close to the 
surface, the cost of sinking the shaft and pro- 
viding ventilation, hauling and draining facili- 
ties, is not excessive, and on the basis of even 
the lowest bituminous coal prices in the last 
10 years, the business appears to offer a mar- 
gin that must attract capital, and prove a boon 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



229 



to labor and the business interests of Bay 
County. 

More interesting data is gathered from the 
last report of the State labor commissioner. 
There were 28 mines in operation in Michi- 
gan in 1904, with 2,714 employees, averaging 
y."] hours per day and 18.3 days per month. 
This lack of work in 1904 was due almost en- 
tirely to a lack of cars and a consequent slow 
turn. At the time when there was a demand 
for the coal, the mines could get no cars, and 
so the competitors from other States supplied 
much of the home market ! The average daily 
wages of all coal mine employees was $3.01 
per day in 1904; 28,335 gallons of illuminat- 
ing oil were consumed, and 23 mines using 
blasting powder used up 65,163 kegs, averag- 
ing 5,430 kegs of powder per mine. The ag- 
gregate of coal mined in Michigan was 1,414,- 
834 tons, at an aggregate cost of $2,286,- 
160.21, or $1.62 per ton. 

The wage scale agreed on in 1904 runs to 
JNlarch 31, 1906, and provides that pick miners 
shall receive 91 cents for each ton from a 30- 
inch vein, 96 cents for a 27-inch vein, and 
$1.01 for 24 to 27-inch veins. The ton is 
2,000 pounds, over a % diamond or flat-bar 
screen, 14 feet in length with 72 feet super- 
ficial area. Exact scales for narrow work and 
room turning are provided. Bottom cagers, 
drivers, trip riders, water and machine haul- 
ers, timbermen and track-layers receive $2.42 
per 8-hour day; helpers, $2.23; company men 
in long-wall mines, $2.23 ; motormen, $2.65 ; 
pipemen, $2.36; trappers, $1.06; greasers, 
$1.18; all other inside day labor, $2.23. Out- 
side day labor for eight hours : Dumpers and 
trimmers, $2.23 ; engineers, $2.65 ; carpenters, 
$2.55; check chasers, $1.32; firemen, $1.91, 
and the same amount for all other outside 
labor. A special schedule per ton is provided 
for chain machine mining and the punching 



machines, loading and drilling being -^-^ and 
52>4 cents per ton, respectively, cutting and 
shearing in proportion. 

Since this scale is in force, with practical 
adaptations to local conditions, in all the bitu- 
minous districts of the country, the cost of 
mining the coal should not operate against 
Bay County coal, hence the discrimination 
must be in the transportation cost and fa- 
cilities. 

The Wenona mine is now putting in an 
electric hauling system, and there the frolick- 
ing days of the timorous mine mule are num- 
bered! The boys will miss his antics, but will 
breathe easier, when they hear a coal car ap- 
proaching, for like his cousin, the army mule, 
the mine mule has fits of bad temper, when he 
kicks recklessly at everything and everybody, 
tears around and balks alternately, and more 
than one driver and miner has gone to his last 
reward under the sudden impression of a mul- 
ish hoof. The Wenona mine in 1904 em- 
ployed 150 miners, 80 day men, 10 trappers 
and 46 machine men. The manager is E. B. 
Foss and superintendent, James Gallagher. 
The What-Cheer mine is a shaft opening, 196 
feet deep ; shaft 8 by 18 feet in the clear ; gauge 
of mine track, 40 inches ; coal vein, three feet 
thick and of fine quality. The rooms have just 
been driven; 20 miners and 10 day men are 
employed. The Michigan mine has an air in- 
let of 19,800 cubic feet per minute, employ 92 
miners, 32 day men, three trappers and eight 
machine men. Frank P. Young is manager, 
and Sam Wormeldorf, superintendent. The 
Central mine employes 75 miners, 25 day men, 
two trappers and 10 machine men. George 
Waller is manager. Wolverine mine No. 3 is 
one of the best in the country, having just put 
in a new electric light plant, new boilers, new 
guides in hoisting shaft, new cages and a new 
motor to haul coal to pit bottom. Fire wiped 



230 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



out all abo\e the ground recently, but the build- 
ings are being put up again as quickly as pos- 
sible. The working force is composed of 126 
miners. 30 day men, three trappers and seven 
machine men. R. M. Randall is manager and 
Alex. AIcEhvain superintendent. Wolverine 
mine No. 2 has increased hopper and otherwise 
improved mine capacity; employs 127 miners, 
30 day men, three trappers, and 60 machine 
men. The Pittsburg mine has 61 miners and 
28 day men; John Werner is manager. The 
Bay mine is one of the most reliable in Bay 
County; employs 78 miners, 31 day men. four 
trappers and 14 machine men. M. L. Da vies 
is manager. The Hecla mine shut down in 
October, 1903, pending a settlement of the 
legal troubles of that million dollar concern, 
and is expected to reopen in 1905. The United 
City mine reached coal within the West Side 
city limits August 26, 1904; the shaft is 6 
feet 8 inches by 14 feet: with a depth of 142 
feet ; the coal vein is nearly six feet thick. At 
present 60 day men are employed. John Walsh 
is manager and David Jones, superintendent. 
The Coryell mine has 180 miners, 67 day men 
and eight trappers. Charles Coryell is man- 
ager and Elias Mathews, superintendent. The 
old Valley or Dutch Creek mine is now being 
operated by one of the pioneers of the coal 
mine business of Bay County, Frank Zagel- 
meyer, with 29 miners and 10 clay diggers. He 
found an excellent quality of clay for making 
brick in the mine shaft, and so conceived the 
idea of digging clay and coal in conjunction, 
organizing the Michigan Vitrified Brick Com- 
pany, which will furnish the brick for all of 
Bay City's paving this coming summer. This 
venture may open a new field for our coal mine 
operator's. Alexander Zagelmeyer, the orig- 
inal pioneer coal mine operator, has a fine mine 
in the Salzburg, employing 80 miners. 23 day 
men and one trapper. He caters particularly 



to home consumption of his output, although he 
has excellent railroad facilities besides, and is 
gradually increasing the output of the mine. 
He is a prominent figure at all councils between 
the well-organized coal miners of District No. 
24. United Mine \\'orkers, and the coal opera- 
tors, and has always succeeded in settling on 
terms mutually satisfactory, all differences, 
due to new conditions and accidents of the 
coal strata. The two short strikes in the dis- 
trict have been due to a desire on the part of 
the operators to make sure that their interests 
were at least as well protected as those of other 
operators in the same competitive field, and the 
determination of the miners to improve their 
living conditions, wherever possible. 

While the mining in Bay County is not 
surrounded by the dangers of other coal fields, 
the deadly mine gas being entirely absent here, 
still accidents are numerous. On December 
29, 1903. John Simmons, aged 35, single, was 
killed at Wolverine mine No. 2, by falling 
rock. On January 16. 1904. Thomas Brown, 
aged 25. single, was killed by a premature ex- 
plosion at \\'enona mine. On May 14, 1904, 
Fred Serva, aged 28, married, was similarly 
killed at \^''olverine mine No. 2. On October 
26, 1904. William Western, aged 42. married. 
was killed at Wolverine mine No. 3, by falling 
slate. A dozen miners were injured by similar 
causes, though not fatally. Andrew Stevens. 
State mine inspector, reports all mines having 
mine ventilators, driving the fans at a speed 
insuring at least 100 cubic feet of air for each 
miner per minute, and the air is well distrib- 
uted through all the entries. 

The lack of cars for shipping was keenly 
felt by the industry, especially in Bay County, 
and the output was curtailed on this account. 
These mines are now seriously considering the 
transportation problem, on which so much of 
their future business is dependent. Chicago 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



231 



imported and consumed 11.000,000 tons of 
coal in 1904, and with cheap water transporta- 
tion all the way should be as good a market 
for Bay County coal, as it once was the best 
customer for our lumber. ]\Iore outside mar- 
Icets and more home consumption will be neces- 
sary for the future development of our coal 
industry, and strong efforts should be made at 
once to secure iron and metal industries, that 
will go hand in hand with our coal industry. 
Certain it is, that with three to six feet of coal 
right under our feet, the cheap fuel problem 
has been solved for Bay County for all time! 
The Legislature early provided for the reg- 
ulation of the coal mines, and the protection of 
the lives of the coal miners. Act No. 57, Pub- 
lic Acts of 1899, provides: I. For a mine in- 
spector, at $1,500 per year; II. That escape 
shafts must not be less than eight feet square ; 

III. That a competent and trustworthy en- 
gineer shall attend to the hoisting devices. 

IV. That safety catches and covers be on all 
cages, which can carry but 10 men at once, and 
then only when the other cage is empty; V. 
That employees name the weighman ; VI. 
Operators held responsible for safety of mines, 
and fresh air supply; VII. Imposes the penal- 
ties for violations of these safeguards, 
and sets forth the rights and duties of the State 
mine inspector. The Legislature of 1905 is 
now considering some minor additions to this 
act, providing for uniformity of these safe- 
guards at all mines. Since the Bay City mines 
are not very deep, their safeguarding is easily 
assured. Verily : 

Down the broad vale of tears afar 

The spectral camp is fled ; 
Faith shineth as a morning star, 

Our ghastly fears are dead ! 

TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES. 

All our natural resources — lumber, salt. 



coal and agricultural products — are dependent 
for their fullest development upon a ready 
means of transportation from forest and field 
and prairie, to the factory and workshop, and 
the finished product from the scene of their 
manufacture, to the markets of the world. 

Father Marquette, sailing along the west- 
ern shore of Lake Huron, followed the wide 
reaches of Saginaw Bay, until a great, wide 
river poured its flood from the south, and in- 
vited them to "0-Sauk-e-non," the "Land of 
the Sauks" or Sacs, as they are called in these 
later days. The explorations of this devoted 
Jesuit are not well preserved, the findings of 
the first white men to visit these shores but 
vaguely outlined, in the musty records of long 
ago. But the great river, with its black forest 
of pines, and the crowded wigwams of the 
Indians in some pretty groves, where solemn 
councils were held with the red men, some 
weeks before reaching Mackinaw, can have 
been none other than our own. 

The other rivers that pour their floods into 
Lake Huron from the south and west are in- 
comparable to the deep and wide flood of the 
Saginaw. The earliest inland trading stations 
in Michigan were on its banks, and the first 
villages and permanent settlements north of 
Detroit are in this valley. The easy mode of 
travel by canoe and bark to and from Detroit, 
and between the several settlements on its 
southern forks and branches, proved early the 
pathway of the primitive commerce and trad- 
ing of Central Michigan. 

In 1792 the relatives of Louis Trombley re- 
ported to the military Governor at Detroit, 
that this Indian trader and two of his coasting 
vessels had been lost somewhere near the 
mouth of the river of the Sacs ! The "Savage," 
a 40-ton .sloop, about 1830 sailed in and out of 
the Saginaw in search of fur and trade with 
the Indians. In 1832 a 50-ton vessel brought 



HISTORY OF BAY COUXTY 



freight for the American Fur Company, and 
carried a load of potatoes from Duncan INIac- 
Clellan's, far above the sand-bar, to Detroit, 
the first export of farm produce from this val- 
ley. In August, 1837, George Raby sailed the 
"North America" into the river, and for years 
traded with his schooner up and down the 
river and bay shore. The "Conneaut Packet,' 
sailed by Capt. J. Davis Smith, carried the first 
cargo of lumber for the McCormicks to De- 
troit in 1842. This boat, together with Cap- 
tain Wilson's little schooner "Mary," were 
both driven by storms on the Canadian shore 
and wrecked shortly after. 

In July, 1836, While Judge Miller, James 
Eraser and Surveyor Eleazer Jewett were din- 
ing at Leon Trombley's log house, where 
Fourth avenue and Water street now intersect, 
the company were startled by lo-year-old 
Louis Trombley rushing into the little shack, 
shouting: "A steamboat, a steamboat!" Judge 
Miller often recalled how they hurried outside 
to see what had deceived the boy into thinking 
a steamboat was coming. To their great aston- 
ishment and delight it really was the steamer 
"Governor Marcy," chartered by Mr. Jenni- 
son and others of the city above the sand-bar. 
Mr. Jennison was the father of Charles E. 
Jennison, who in this very year 1905 is assist- 
ing, with his sons, in again securing regular 
steamer connection with Detroit and the shore 
cities. Such is the flight of time, with its re- 
curring cycles in the lives of men ! The "Gov- 
ernor ^larcy" proudly made headway against 
a southern wind, and was the first steamer to 
plow the waters of this river. 

In 1847, James Fraser, the Fitzhughs and 
others built the stern-wheeler "Buena Vista," 
somewhat on the Ohio River style, the first 
one to be built on this river, and for many 
years .thereafter this boat did a thriving busi- 
ness along the river and its navigable tribu- 



taries. Orrin Kinney, still living on Cass 
avenue, was her first engineer ! 

About 1850 the steamer "Columbia" be- 
gan making weekly trips between here and De- 
troit; the tug "Lathrop" began towing on the 
river; Capt. Darius Cole brought the "Snow," 
and "Charter :" Captain Wolverton ran the 
steamer "Fox" after 1854. and soon the river 
was alive with craft of all descriptions. We 
had the timber and the mills, but not until 
plenty of boats for shipping the product of the 
mills were at hand did the lumber industry 
assume its final large proportions. 

In 1858 Captain Cole established the shore 
line to Alpena with the steamer "Columbia." 
Later the "Metropolis," "Arundell" and "Sag- 
inaw Valley" made this route, while the "L. 
G. Mason" and "W. R. Burt" came here in 
1868, for the river passenger traffic. The 
writer has enjoyed many trips on all these 
boats between 1883 and 1893. and witnessed 
the destruction of the "L. G. Mason" by fire 
about 1890 near the Lafayette avenue bridge. 

The river and lake craft underwent con- 
tinual changes and improvements, and it is in- 
deed a far cry from the original "Buena Vista" 
to the monster "Sylvania" just launched on 
these self-same waters ! 

Old mariners will recall the foundering of 
the side-wheeler "Dove" near the mouth of the 
river, where she stranded, and will recall the 
familiar names of the river craft about 1885 : 
Steamers "Metropolis," "Dunlap," "E. T. 
Carrington," "Luther Westover," "Emerald," 
"Sea Gull," "Handy Boy," "Plow Boy," 
"Post Boy," "Arundell," "Forbes" ! They were 
the means of transportation then, where to-day 
are the electric cars and vestibuled trains. 
Thus early the steam-barges "Donaldson," 
"Sanilac," "Benton" and their barges carried 
their lumber cargoes to Ohio ports, just as they 
did in 1904. But they are the few survivors of 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



233 



that immense fleet that handled Bay City's 
monster lumher shipments for 30 years and 
which annually wintered here, furnishing em- 
plo}'ment and business to many men and 
merchants. 

The propellers of deep draught were not 
long in locating a sand-bar at the mouth of the 
river, where the great stream had deposited the 
sediment of the lowlands for untold ages. In 
1867 the work of dredging this deposit was 
commenced and finished in 1869. ]Many river 
improvements have been made since then, and 
lake vessels of the deepest draught can now 
enter this river. In 1905 the great steam- 
barges laden with salt and coal find no trouble 
in loading here, and the way to the outside 
world is made easy for them. 

In July. 1839, Capt. Stephen Wolverton 
arrived to build for the government the first 
lighthouse, near the mouth of the river, on the 
west shore. 

And on its outer point, some miles away, 

The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry, 

A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day. 

And as the evening darkens, lo ! how bright. 
Through the deep purple of the twilight air, 

Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light 
With strange, unearthly splendor in the glare ! 

And the great ships sail outward and return, 
Bending and bowing o'er the billowy swells. 

And ever joyful, as they see it burn. 

They wave their silent welcomes and farewells. 

— Longfellow. 

This lighthouse, built more than 60 years 
ago, has ever been a conspicuous landmark at 
the harbor entrance. The snow-white, slanting 
sides reflect the rays of the sun, and are visible 
for miles by day. A more modern lighthouse 
witli stronger reflectors was built some 20 
years later, and guards to-day the entrance to 
the river, a little south by west of the original 
beacon light. The old house has since served 
as a home for the light-keeper. In IMarch, 



1905, an order came to demolish the old beacon 
light, and contracts have already been let for 
a more modern home for the light-keeper. 
Hardly did the remaining pioneers hear of the 
order for demolition, when they petitioned 
Congressman Loud, on the committee of naval 
affairs, to preserve the beloved old landmark, 
and efforts are now being made in Washington 
to save the structure. A buoy system was later 
introduced, so that deep-draught steamers 
would not go too far toward the Kawkawlin, 
which swift running stream is also ever busy 
carrying down the sediments gathered along 
its banks. The fact that not one single wreck 
with loss of life or property has taken place 
there for 30 years or more speaks well for the 
fine harbor facilities, and easy accessibility of 
Bay City by our lake craft. The "Sylvania," 
greatest craft of the Great Lakes, launched a 
few weeks ago by the West Bay City Ship 
Building Company, will have no trouble in sail- 
ing smoothly out of this natural harbor. A 
pity 'tis, that more ships of commerce are not 
made to find profitable the navigation of this 
harbor and river, so blessed by Nature. 

One of the first results of the organization 
of Bay County in 1857, was the building of 
permanent roadways to the heart of the local 
timber belt, and the farm communities in the 
scattered clearings. Under the supervision of 
Gen. B. F. Partridge, James Eraser, William 
McEwan, and Christopher Heinzmann, this 
plank road was begun in 1859 and coinpleted 
in i860. Then the Bay City and Midland 
plank road was undertaken in 1866 and com- 
pleted to the county line in 1868. Mercer & 
Hotchkiss built a small sawinill at Spicer's 
Corners for cutting the plank for this road. 
The Kawkawlin plank road and the State road 
to Saginaw on the West Side opened up new 
territory for settlement, and proved a boon to 
the earlv settlers. 



234 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



On May 29, 1882, the electors of Bay 
County voted in favor of bonding for $100,- 
000, at 5 per cent, interest, for building ma- 
cadamized stone roads. In 1883 the stone road 
committee had built two miles on the Kaw- 
kawlin road, two miles on the Frankenlust 
road, ti\e miles of the Midland road, and five 
miles on the Cass River road. Since then these 
roads have been gradually extended in every 
direction, reaching the Saginaw County line 
both east and west of the river, Tuscola 
County to the east and southeast, Midland on 
the Avest, and the latest additions are to the 
north, toward Arenac. 

There is not a county in Alichigan that has 
done as much for permanent roadways as has 
Bay County, and the results have been com- 
mensurate. Farmers residing beyond the 
county lines to the east, west and south, bring 
their product to market in Bay City, because 
they find good roads, whatever the season. 
This has been an especial boon for the sugar 
beet and chicory industry, and the people have 
never regretted the money so spent. It costs 
considerable to keep these roads in good re- 
pair, and an immense stone roller was bought 
by the board in 1904 to crush the hardheads 
for resurfacing. Heretofore limestone has been 
used, but experience proves, that these soft 
stones are crushed into powder, which is blown 
aw-ay. The townships have caught the spirit 
of good roads, and one can now travel in any 
direction from Bay City over miles and miles 
of the best possible country roads. The floods 
of 1904 and the deep snow of last winter 
brought up some new problems. Open wire 
fences are recommended along public high- 
ways to avoid snow drifts, and the drainage 
system will be improved to meet even such 
high water marks as were reached in 1904. 
IMuch of Bay County's progress in agriculture 



and land improvement is directly due to our 
fine stone road system. 

By 18G5 the fine waterway and planned 
roadways hardly sufficed to meet the growing- 
demands of these booming lumber towns, and 
the citizens, headed again by James Fraser and 
Judge James Birney, moved to get railroad 
connection. The Flint & Pere Marquette 
Railroad Company was given a land grant of 
alternate sections by Congress, June 3, 1856, 
which action was ratified by Michigan Febru- 
ary 15, 1857, and in October, 1858, the first 
grading was done below Flint. 

In 1864 Judge Birney drafted, and had 
passed by the Legislature, an act authorizing- 
Bay County to bond for $75,000 toward aiding 
the construction of a railroad between here and 
Saginaw on the east side of the river. The 
swamp extending from our southern city lim- 
its almost to the limits of Saginaw, seemed an 
impassible barrier, but Algernon S. Munger 
secured a dredge, made a canal along the route 
as now used, throwing the subsoil on the road- 
bed, wdiich made a good surface and in that 
manner overcame Nature's worst obstacle to 
entering Bay City along the river front from 
the south. 

On Saturday morning, November 23, 
1867, the first excursion train came down from 
Saginaw and on November 26th the citizens 
celebrated the opening of the railroad with a 
big banquet at the Fraser, where Mr. Mimger 
was presented with a $350 watch and chain, as 
a token of appreciation of his work in secur- 
ing the road. 

On January i, 1867, the Jackson Division 
of the ^Michigan Central Railroad was com- 
pleted as far as the West Side. Henry W. 
Sage, D. H. and Charles C. Fitzhugh were 
mainly instrumental in securing this road thus 
early for the West Side. As w-e view the great 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



235 



traffic yards, magnificent depots and busy 
roundhouses, with the hundreds of men find- 
ing employment on this road in 1905, we can 
not help but appreciate the good work of those 
early business men, and the good judgment of 
the railroad management in selecting this point 
for the southern terminal of the Mackinaw Di- 
vision and the Gladwin Branch, and for the 
northern terminal of the Detroit and Jackson 
divisions. The Detroit Division was com- 
pleted in 1873 ^"d is 108 miles long. 

The ISIichigan Central Railroad bridge was 
built across the river here in 1873, and in April, 
1905, is being replaced by a more substantial 
and modern structure. The feat of placing 
the new structure without causing more than a 
few hours interruption of traffic was accom- 
plished by placing the new structure on pile 
frames to the right, with similar pile frames to 
the left of the piers. When everything was 
ready the old bridge was moved bodily onto 
the left piles, and the new structure moved 
bodily and speedily onto the permanent piers. 
But six hours were required to do this work, 
and it is considered quite an engineering feat. 

Thus we find, that while the Pere Mar- 
quette has all its main depots, offices, shops and 
traffic yards in the city above the sand-bar, the 
Michigan Central has all similar institutions for 
employing labor and handling its traffic, in 
Bay City, East and West Side. 

When things looked gloomiest for Bay 
County, the Michigan Central opened the Mid- 
land Branch, making a rich farming country 
triljutary to this city. When the coal indus- 
try was being tried out, it was the same road 
that offered every encouragement to the oper- 
ators. This road has been instrumental in lo- 
cating more than one manufacturing institu- 
tion at this deep-water harbor, thereby increas- 
ing its own business, but incidentally also help- 
ing the development of the city and county. 

13 



For many years the Michigan Central 
Depot at Bay City has been one of the finest 
in the country, containing all the traffic offices 
for the several divisions centering here. The 
freight houses on the river bank, at the foot of 
First street, are most conveniently located and 
very spacious. The belt line is another great 
convenience for freight shippers, and offers 
some fine sites for new industries. 

The Pere Marquette Railroad completed its 
handsome passenger station on Jefferson ave- 
nue in 1904, after compelling the city to close 
Fourth avenue from Adams street to Madi- 
son avenue. The old rookery across the way 
was used as a depot by Bay City for 30 years, 
during 20 of which the people insisted in vain 
that it was not in keeping with the other ad- 
vances in the city. The old freight sheds are 
still in use on Adams street, but these, too, are 
to be replaced this very year by new and mod- 
ern structures. 

The shore line railroad, projected as early 
as 1882, became a reality in 1897, when the De- 
troit & Mackinac Railway was built from here 
to Alpena, via Pinconning, Turner, Twining, 
Onier, East Tawas, Tawas City, Au Sable, 
Harrisville and Black River. In 1904 this road 
was extended to Cheboygan, whose citizens cel- 
ebrated the event by a monster excursion to 
Bay City, and later entertained the business 
men of this city in a most hospitable manner in 
the city of the large pulp paper-mill and mam- 
moth tanneries. The road is steadily pushing 
northward to the Straits of Mackinac and will 
soon be in a position to handle much of the 
L'pper Peninsula traffic. It connects with the 
Pere Marquette at Bay City, and another fine 
field has been opened for the enterprise of our 
local merchants and industries. 

The Lake shore pine barrens have been 
found to possess many good qualities for graz- 
ing and orchards, and even good farms are 



23'J 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



springing up, where lo years ago every one 
thought nothing hut pine timber would grow. 
As this vast territory to the north becomes 
more thickly settled, electric inter-urban lines 
are sure to connect them still closer with the 
metropolis of Northern Michigan. Much along 
this line has already been done by the cheap ex- 
cursions of the Michigan Central and Detroit 
& Mackinac, and still more is promised in that 
line in 1905. 

Bay City is the northern terminal of the 
Cincinnati, Saginaw & Mackinaw Railroad, 
now owned and controlled by the Grank Trunk 
system, thus offering ideal connections for Chi- 
cago, Canada and the East. For some years this 
road has been planning to enter the East Side, 
its depot now being situated on Williams and 
Midland streets, West Side, and is popularly 
known to the traveling public as the Grand 
Trunk road. Its lines extend to Wenona 
Beach, handling much of the coal output of the 
mines in that locality. The road is planning 
to run its tracks into the beautiful summer re- 
sort, whose enclosure they now skirt, and make 
a specialty of bringing excursions from all over 
the State to this "Little Coney Island" of Cen- 
tral Michigan. 

Another new steam road is assured over 
the much desired "Thumb" route, — Bay City 
to Port Huron, z'ia Caro and Cass City. An- 
other is being boomed from Bay City to De- 
troit, via Vassar, Lapeer and Pontiac. The 
vast amount of sugar beets shipped annually, 
and the bright prospects of the coal industry of 
the valley, offer splendid inducements for these 
additional transportation projects. 

The inter-urban electric line from Bay City 
to Detroit, I'ia Saginaw, Flint, Pontiac and 
Birmingham, will be completed this summer. 
The branch between here and Saginaw via 
Zilwaukee and Carrollton has been in opera- 



tion for some years, and a splendid bridge takes 
it from the West Side to the East Side just 
south of the North American Chemical Com- 
pany's plant. In its official report to the Sec- 
retary of State, it reports 36 miles of track on 
this branch, much of it double, employs 220 
men and carried 4,059,632 passengers in 1904, 
at 20 cents each way. It is controlled at pres- 
ent by the same syndicate that owns the local 
street railway system. In that same official 
report we find our street railway system owns 
nearly 18 miles of track, employs 125 men and 
carried 2,303,125 passengers in 1904. The 
fare to Detroit is now $3.26, but the electric 
line will carry passengers through, when com- 
pleted, in almost the same length of time, for 
$2. The value of these inter-urban lines to 
rural districts can not be overestimated, and 
Bay City does not want to stand idle while new 
lines are being projected and built. Efforts 
should speedily be made to open up the settled 
district to our north, not yet touched by any 
railroad, and let the motto be here, as in our 
fine stone road system, "Th.\t all good roads 
LE.\D to Bay City." 

The river is our natural highway, and in- 
dustries should be crowded on its entire 15 
miles of deep-water channels and many docks, 
left by the desertion of the lumber industry. 
Railroad competition builds up communities, 
and should be encouraged. The coal industry 
should get better and cheaper car service. The 
Inter-State Commerce Commission might look 
into the charge of local railroad discrimination 
with profit to all concerned. Our fine stone 
road system must be sustained and enlarged 
continually, until not one mile of our fine farm- 
ing district is left untouched. New steam and 
electric roads should bear in mind that Bay 
City is by nature and endeavor the metropolis 
of Northern Michigan. 



CHAPTER X. 



Sugar Beets, Agricultural Products, Fish and Varied Industries. 

Wheresoe'er they move, before them 
Swarms the stinging fly, the Ahmo, 
Swarms the bee, the honey-maker ; 
Wheresoe'er they tread, beneath them 
Springs a flower unknown among us. 
Springs the White-man's Foot in blossom. 

— Song of Hiawatha. 



sugar beets. 

The veteran chief of our national Depart- 
ment of Agricukure, Secretary James W^ilson, 
during his personal visit to the sugar beet belt 
of Michigan in the fall of 1903, put his seal 
of approval upon Bay County's proud title, 
and any one with discerning eye need but look 
about, upon the cozy homes, the well-kept 
barns and storehouses, our rich farms of 1905, 
where stood three decades ago the giants of 
the virgin forest, to realize that this indeed is 
a garden spot. 

Bay County first attracted the lumbermen. 
The farmers of the East preferred for many 
years the prairies of the West, to the wooded 
lowlands of Michigan. The pioneers who 
rushed past our southern border to people Iowa, 
Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas did so be- 
cause they did not care to clear a farm, when 
there appeared so much rich soil all ready for 
the plow and harrow. But experience soon 
proved their calculations to have been in error. 
While the pioneer of the Dakotas shivered in 
his shack all winter for the want of firewood, 



and burned his corn, because the price in the 
markets of the world did not warrant him to 
haul it over tedious courses to the nearest trad- 
ing center, the Michigan farmer was warmed 
by the hardwood that grew at his very doors, 
and his labor and income were continuous. The 
great trees on the lands of Bay County's pio- 
neers brought good prices in Bay City, and 
many of them were hauled by the farmers 
themselves to the sawmills. Those not re- 
c[uired for manufacture made good firewood, 
good fences, barns and even cozy homes. If 
he chose, the Bay County fanner could work 
his farm in summer, and go to the logging 
camps at good pay all winter. Where the 
pioneer on the Western prairies could hardly 
get lumber at any price, the Bay County 
farmer from the first could get all he wanted 
for the hauling and a song. Since farms and 
farm produce were scarce, prices were always 
good. In 1880 the government census showed 
that hay had brought $30 per ton, and potatoes 
$1.50 per bushel, during the early spring and 
late winter. 

The soil in Bay County has been found to 



238 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



be uniformly a clay loam, rich and crummy 
withal. On the few ridges were found light 
warm soils, hence the county can produce any- 
thing from the finest table celery and sweet 
sugar beets to the ginseng root and tobacco. 

When things looked gloomiest for the bus- 
iness interests of Bay City, owing to the kill- 
ing of the lumber industry by the $2 tariff on 
logs, we placed our faith and reliance in the 
productiveness of our soil, and the increasing 
importance of our agricultural resources, and 
we were not disappointed. 

Upon the organization of Bay County in 
1857, there were about 25 farms in process of 
creation in the wilderness of pine stumpage and 
swamps. It was the generally accepted notion 
of those times, that the lowlands near the 
mouth of the river were utterly worthless for 
farm purposes. But the success of our pioneer 
farmers disproved those notions by 1870, and 
from that year dates a decided boom in our 
rural properties. From mere pine barrens, our 
townships have blossomed into a veritable 
garden spot, through dint of industry and in- 
telligent cultivation. 

In 1878 Judge Isaac Marston delivered an 
address before the State Agricultural Society, 
enumerating the rapid and rich development of 
Bay County's agricultural resources. In 1865 
there were but 132 farms, and only 2.756 acres 
were improved. The crops for that year were 
estimated at 3,300 tons of hay, 4,500 bushels 
of oats, 4,950 bushels of corn and 5,600 bushels 
of wheat. In 1870 the Federal census showed 
271 farms, 4,000 tons of hay, 26,000 bushels of 
potatoes, 73,000 bushels of oats, 84.000 bushels 
of com, and 5,500 bushels of wheat, 50.000 
bushels of wheat being imported for local grist- 
mills. Tuscola and Gratiot counties, with less 
population than Bay, raised four times as much 
wheat and other farm products. This was due 
to the slow development of Bay County's farm 



districts. Settlers who came with the inten- 
tion of taking up farming were pressed into 
the sawmills, where the returns were quick. But 
many have lived to regret their action, for they 
spent all their wages, and at the end of 10 and 
20 years were at exactly the same place where 
they started, while those who went into farm- 
ing at once had accumulated much valuable 
property and a competence. The wage earners 
as consumers of farm products contributed to 
the wealth of the food producers. 

As late as 1870 good farm property within 
easy distance of Bay City could be bought for 
$10 to $15 per acre. During the winter when 
the mills were idle, laborers would contract to 
do the clearing for $15 per acre. The soil was 
a rich black alluvial, with just enough admix- 
ture of sand to make it easily tilled and 
crummy. With the building of the plank 
roads, the farm lands became more desirable 
and were quickly taken up, so that the State 
census of 1874 showed 668 acres in wheat. In 
1876, 1,410 acres were harvested and by 1880 
this had grown to 5,624 acres, on 997 farms, 
with 29,279 improved acreage. These figvires 
are indicative of the progress made in the set- 
tlement and development of our despised low- 
lands. 

In 1890 Bay ranked third as a wheat pro- 
ducing county and, best of all. ranked first in 
many of the farm products, in quality and 
quantity of production per acre. In that year 
wheat averaged nearly 25 bushels to the acre 
and corn, 94. The data of that Federal cen- 
sus proved conclusively, that the 6.000 square 
miles of territory drained by the Saginaw River 
and its tributaries were the most productive in 
all Michigan. Wheat, corn, barley, oats and 
rye were the leading products. The orchards 
had matured and multiplied to a point where 
there was no longer any doubt about this being 
also a great fruit belt. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



239 



The chemists of the Department of Agri- 
culture gave the following instructive composi- 
tion of Bay County's soil : Sand and silica, 
82.24; alumina, 4.60; oxide of iron, 2.42; lime, 
1.18; magnesia, .46; potash, 1.18; soda. .54; 
sulphuric acid, .20; phosphoric acid, .38; or- 
ganic matter containing 17 per cent, nitrogen, 
5.37; water and loss, .25; total ash food, 3.94; 
capacity for water, 47.30. Comparing this com- 
position with that of the soil in Europe's fav- 
orite sugar beet belt, it was found to be as 
good, and in some respects even superior. 

This led about 1895 to the first experiments 
W'ith the sweet roots, which have since given 
Bay County its four monster sugar factories, 
opened a new and practically unlimited field 
for the ingenuity and industry of our farmers, 
and enhanced the value of all farm produce for 
the entire State. The deep, rich loam, with a 
subsoil of clay, with plenty of moisture, hot 
summers and late falls, presented ideal condi- 
tions for sugar beets, and the fact that many of 
our farmers came from the beet fields of Ger- 
niany and Holland, assured the success of the 
venture from the first. Hon. Nathan B. Brad- 
ley. C. B. Chatfield, E. Y. Williams, Rev. 
A\'illiam Reuther and others secured beet seed 
from Germany and also from the Department 
of Agriculture at Washington, Dr. H. W. 
Wiley furnishing willingly for these experi- 
mer.ts, all the seed at the disposal of the de- 
partment for 1896 and 1897. 

In the special report issued by Hon. James 
Wilson, IMarch 2, 1898, on the beet sugar in- 
dustry, Michigan was given only secondary 
consideration, so little did the national depart- 
ment appreciate the resources and initiative of 
our farmers and manufacturers. Of Michigan 
the report merely said : "A large part of the 
Southern Peninsula, and especially the Sag- 
inaw Valley, of Michigan, is directly in the 
heart of the beet belt. The contour of the soil 



is favorable, being reasonably level (!), with 
an average (?) fertility, and the data which 
have been secured in actual experiments in that 
valley are of the most encouraging nature. 
There seems to be no doubt of the fact, that 
this locality is among the best in the United 
States for beet culture, and the modifying in- 
fluence of the lake on the autumnal climate 
must not be lost sight of." 

In the averages of the beet samples tested 
by Dr. Wiley in 1896, Bay does not show up 
as well as some of the other counties further 
south, counties which since then have proven 
in actual experience to be on the whole totally 
unfitted for sugar beet culture. In this very 
year 1905 the Rochester sugar factory near 
Detroit will not be operated, and the few beets 
raised in that locality will be shipped to other 
and better located factories. The owners as- 
cribe their failure to the poor, sandy soil of that 
vicinity. This proves the fallacy of building 
great enterprises on the strength of a few 
isolated experiments. The lack of enterprise 
and cultivation by the farmers of that vicinity 
is also remarked. 

In the experiments of 1897 Bay presented 
nine samples; sugar contents, 15.53 P^^' cent., 
purity, 84 per cent.. — an average since steadily 
maintained in the cultivation of thousands of 
acres. Dr. Wiley praises the weight, about 20 
ounces per beet, the long tapering root of the 
Bay Count)' beets, with no bulging above 
ground, showing a well-worked subsoil, and 
his report in this respect proved quite encour- 
aging. 

The test beets were planted on May 8th, 
and harvested October 6tli. The government 
computed that Michigan's experimental station 
required the following expense in raising an 
acre of beets : Plowing and subsoiling, man and 
team, 12 hours; harrowing and planting, 3^ 
hours; cultivating, 15 hours; harvesting, 5 



240 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



hours; and man alone, thinning and hoeing, 
76 hours; harvesting, 131 hours, at a total cost 
of $29.60 per acre. The average yield per acre 
was aver 10 tons; sugar contents, 15.50 per 
cent, purity 84 per cent. The department also 
set forth that $100,000,000 was annually sent 
out of this country for sugar, and urged that 
American enterprise and industry ought to 
supply at least a portion of this home consump- 
tion. The value of beet pulp for cattle feeding 
was set forth, the 16 to 25 per cent, of sugar 
still remaining in the refuse molasses was ex- 
pected to be minimized by new processes, and 
the production of alcohol from this residium 
was forecasted. 

The department recommended planting in 
rows 14 to 18 inches apart, and the thinning of 
the beets from six to 10 inches. Experience 
has since shown 20 to 21 inches to give best 
results in practice, with nine to 12 inches be- 
tween the beets. It is possible, however, that 
this practice has reduced the production per 
acre and resulted in a large beet, which has pos- 
sessed rather less than the average amount of 
sugar. 

Three things enter primarily into the suc- 
cessful culture of sugar beets, — a rich soil, a 
moist, warm climate with late fall, and intelli- 
gent and industrious cultivation. Bay County 
has ever prided herself on having the soil and 
climate, and the stock of early settlers from the 
beet regions of Europe, was another favor- 
able factor in determining local capitalists in 
investing their money in the first beet sugar 
factory, the Michigan, in 1898. 

The success of the beet crop of that year in- 
duced many farmers to take acreage the next 
two years, whose soil was not so well adapted, 
and many who graduated from the sawmills 
and lumber traffic to the farm, and hence were 
not so w'ell versed in the fine culture required 
for the greatest success of this sensitive crop. 



Hence the Bay City factory, erected in 1899, 
and the original Michigan both had ample 
acreage in 1899 and 1900, but many of the 
growers could not see the exorbitant profit they 
anticipated, and hence ceased to take acreage 
altogether, and moreover antagonized the in- 
dustry. This did not deter the erection of the 
West Bay City sugar factory in Banks in 1900, 
and the German-American factory in Salzburg 
in 1901. the latter being built on the coopera- 
tive plan by a few local capitalists and many 
local farmers, the latter putting in some ready 
cash, but providing to pay for most of their 
stock in certain amounts of beet acreage each 
year. The latter factory met with some hard- 
ships the first year, but the farmers kept their 
course steadfastly, and the campaigns of 1903 
and 1904 were quite satisfactory. 

It has since been claimed in the official re- 
ports of the labor department for Michigan, 
that too many factories were located at Bay 
City and Saginaw, quoting as a proof of this 
assertion the fact that this very year the mam- 
moth Saginaw sugar factory is being dis- 
mantleil to be taken to Colorado. We can not 
agree with these labor authorities. We believe 
that all the industry requires for constant 
growth, let alone prospering as it now is, will 
be the earnest and intelligent cooperation of 
the farmer and the manufacturer. 

Since the beet sugar industry has taken 
thousands of acres annually from the competi- 
tive field of other crops, the prices of all farm 
truck and produce have materially advanced 
here since 1898. Thinking farmers realize that 
even if there was not one dollar of direct profit, 
it would still pay them well to raise beets and 
so sustain the beet sugar industry. Their profit 
would then come indirectly, but none the less 
certainly, from sugar beets. But even if we 
are to accept the worst statements of land grub- 
bers, who find sugar beets too strenuous a crop 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



241 



year in and year out, it is still true that hun- 
dreds of thousands of dollars are paid out an- 
nually by our sugar factories to our beet 
growers. 

Here at home the sugar factories have had 
"troubles of their own" in recent years. There 
is plenty of soil fit for cultivating the very best 
sugar beets, the factories have secured the very 
best seed, their agriculturists have been doing 
their very best to assist the farmers in raising 
a profitable crop, and yet not one of the four 
factories had sufficient acreage for a three- 
mondis' run in 1904. The Michigan sugar 
house, the first one built in Michigan, was not 
operated at all last fall, because of the lack of 
beets, and the Bay City sugar house, which 
sliced its own and also the Michigan factory's 
beets, did not then ha\-e enough for an average 
season's campaign. This is a deplorable state 
of aft'airs right at our doors, and much of it 
appears to be due to a misapprehension of facts 
by the farmers. 

For some years the land grubbers, whose 
main crops are hay and corn, for obvious rea- 
sons have not been content to contribute noth- 
ing to sustain these enterprising sugar factor- 
ies, but they have actually done much to dis- 
courage their more energetic neighbors from 
beet culture. One of their main arguments has 
been met by the local sugar factories this year 
by off"ering $5 per ton flat for the beets. This 
will do away with fault-finding at harvest time 
with the findings of the weigh, tare and chemi- 
cal departments at the sugar factories, and yet 
leave the more successful farmers to sell their 
beets on the percentage basis as heretofore. 

The farmers will this year have their choice 
of contracts, and as last year gave splendid re- 
turns for the extra care and work required Ijy 
the beet crop, the acreage in 1905 is more en- 
couraging. If Bay County's farmers should 
still prefer to flood the markets of Michigan 



with ordinary farm produce, in preference to 
the finer cultivation of sugar beets, the Michi- 
gan factory will next winter be moved to Col- 
orado, where the Saginaw factory was taken 
this winter, and wdiere the farmers are more 
than anxious to have them locate. 

The beet sugar industry is still in its in- 
fancy, and it almost seems as if everything and 
everybody was conspiring to kill it off. The 
ill-founded cry of Cuban reciprocity resulted 
in Cuban cane sugar, raised by cheap coolie 
labor, being admitted to this country almost 
free of charge to compete with the home-grown 
product of American fields and American 
labor. This was done to help Cuba ostensibly, 
but time and experience have shown that it 
primarily favored the American Sugar Refin- 
ing Company, wdiich imports and handles al- 
most the entire sugar consumed by our people. 
This action of Congress is almost on a par 
with the $2 lumber tariff manipulation, and 
has been as directly and speedily injurious to 
Michigan, in particular! Not one single 
new sugar factory has been built, since 
Cuban sugar was admitted in 1903. almost 
duty free ! ! 

This so-called reciprocity legislation is a 
blot upon the record of the party in power. At 
the National Republican Convention in St. 
Louis in 1896, the party in its national plat- 
form went scpiarely on record in favor of the 
infant sugar industry, urging the advisability 
of protection of so vital an industry until we 
would produce enough sugar for our own con- 
sumption. Much of the capital invested in the 
beet sugar industry in Michigan in the four 
years from 1898 to 1902 came into the business 
relying upon this solemn pledge, that their in- 
terests would be protected. Hardly another 
industry in all our great land is open to more 
injurious competition. It seems almost treas- 
onable to ask American labor and American 



242 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



capital to compete with the cooHe labor and the 
climatic advantages of Cuba, and yet this is 
just what Congress ordained. The result is 
evident in the blight of our most promising 
farm and factory industry. Undoubtedly 
many Congressmen from districts that did not 
have any sugar factories voted in favor of Cu- 
ban sugar as against our own American pro- 
duct, in the hope, that their constituents would 
at once secure cheaper sugar. Their disillu- 
sionment has been both swift and thorough, for 
the sugar prices have been rather higher than 
before Cuban reciprocity killed this native in- 
dustry. As if to cap the climax of this paro- 
doxical action, the powers that be are even now 
trying to also secure free admission to the Phil- 
ippine coolie-produced sugar. 

And so we find our promising beet sugar 
business in 1905, after but six years of ardu- 
ous development, apparently being ground to 
death between two millstones, — obstreperous 
and short-sighted beet growers on the one 
hand, and ill-advised favoritism to foreign 
coolie labor and the sugar trust on the other. 
It will be for our farmers to do their share 
toward saving for Bay County its most prom- 
ising farm and factory industry. And the 
powers that be at Washington should think 
well before blighting the last remaining hopes 
of this infant industry. They can not plead 
ignorance, for Hon. James Wilson, Secretary 
of Agriculture, personally visited our beet belt 
and our sugar factories, and his report, sub- 
mitted to President Roosevelt in 1904, of 
which 10,000 copies were printed, was widely 
read and gave much vital information. That 
report gave Michigan 19 sugar factories and 
predicted "quite a number of new factories in 
the near future." A little investigation by the 
same authorities will show in 1905 that, in- 
stead, five sugar factories were idle last year, 
and three are being dismantled, with more 



doomed, unless some little encouragement is 
held forth by our farmers, and the high pro- 
tection policy is allowed to offer at least a 
little grain of comfort to one of our most 
promising industries. Each farmer should 
raise as many acres of beets, as he can thor- 
oughly work and harvest with the help at his 
immediate command. That would solve half 
of the problem. Congress and the govern- 
ment at Washington can save what is left of 
our beet sugar business, by letting bad 

ENOUGH alone! 

Secretary Wilson's report deals fully with 
the value of the by-products of the beet sugar 
business, particularly the manufacture of al- 
cohol from refuse molasses by the Michigan 
Chemical Company, but he does not say that 
even this factory has not yet been able to se- 
cure enough molasses for even a six-months" 
campaign. All these factories were built on a 
basis of future development of the industry, 
and their millions of dollars invested are now 
confronted by absolute ruin. He speaks of 
cheap water transportation, but we have never 
yet heard of a single ton of beets or of sugar 
going or coming by the river route. The fac- 
tories on the other hand are doing everything 
possible to get farmers interested, even at 
great distances from the plants, by providing 
weigh stations on the railroads, where beets can 
be ^v•eighed and loaded. Pulp feeding for 
stock-raising is becoming more generally ap- 
preciated, and if the beet toppings and leaves 
could be profitably preserved for cattle feed 
during winter, there would be little waste left 
on farm or in factory. The pulp can be fed 
in wet or dry form, and glue, alcohol and even 
charcoal can be produced from it. Secretary 
Wilson is confident that the beet industry will 
make still better uses of its refuse materials. 
He says but a few years ago the meat indus- 
try of the country was conducted locally, and 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



243 



many things went to waste. To-day the meat 
industry is well organized, and hair, hoofs, 
blood, horns and other parts of the carcass, 
that formerly went to waste, are being utilized, 
and he predicts as much progress for the beet 
sugar industry. The average citizen of Bay 
will wonder, by the way, why beef prices are 
so high in 1905, if the prices of cattle are so 
low, and all this former waste is being utilized. 

But, any way, we hope these fond predic- 
tions will come true, and our beet sugar busi- 
ness receive such consideration as its great 
value to our farmers and laborers certainly 
merits. The seasons of 1902 and 1903 were 
bad for sugar beets, late springs, too much 
rain, and early frosts and freezing, all combin- 
ing to injure the crop's prospects. Other crops 
also suffered, of course, but the farmer appears 
to be used to off seasons for potatoes and corn, 
but just one bad season for his beets totally 
discouraged him. Potatoes were high in 1903, 
because most of them hereabouts rotted in the 
ground, hence many farmers rushed largely 
into potato raising in 1904, and as a result 
the price went down to about 25 cents per 
bushel. Sugar beets on the other hand have a 
never changing value of $5 or more per ton. 

Hence it will be of vital interest to our 
county, for the farmer to include sugar beets 
in his regular crop rotation, for he is in fact a 
partner with tlie factory in the business. The 
culture of sugar beets caused a general revival 
in agriculture, and dairying has also felt the 
beneficial effects of this vitalizing crop and its 
by-products. The invention of labor-saving 
machinery will lighten the work of the beet 
growers. With proper soil preparation and 
good fertilizing, the value of every acre of our 
farms will be enhanced. For the intense cul- 
tivation required I)y the beet croj) kills all no.x- 
ious weeds, makes the soil crummv and light 



to depths not before reached, and so more pro- 
ductive for other crops in proper rotation. 

The value of the crop to Bay County and 
Michigan can be illustrated by a few facts and 
figures. The 16 factories operated in 1904-05 
cost over $12,300,000, or more than $600,000 
per factory, with a daily capacit}'- of 12,000 
tons of beets. Over 96,000,000 pounds of 
sugar w-ere produced in Michigan in 1904, 
despite the shortage of the beet crop, while 
113,000,000 pounds were produced by the 
same factories in 1903. Skilled workmen to 
the number 511 were employed at $3 per 
day, and 2,910 other laborers in the factories 
averaged $2.48 per day. About 59,000 acres 
of beets were raised last year, — a decrease, 
compared with 1903, of 34,000 acres and 195,- 
000 tons of beets. These figures apply particu- 
larly to Bay County and speak for themselves. 
The average acreage per farmer was estimated 
in 1903 in Bay County at 7.1 ; in 1904 at 6.3, 
averaging 9.7 tons per acre each year, but with 
much better sugar percentage in 1904. The 
average price per ton in 1903 was $5.01 : in 
1904, $5.61. Thirteen pounds of seed were 
sown per acre, at 1 5 cents per pound, while the 
average cost per acre for raising and harvest- 
ing the beets was $23.29 in 1903, and $22.69 
in 1904. About one-third of Bay County's 
beet growers hired outside help to take care of 
the crop in 1904, furnishing work to men, 
women and children, the latter profiting es- 
pecially by these opportunities during the sum- 
mer vacation season. The sugar houses only 
ran 59 days on the average in 1904, with aver- 
age daily capacity, 640 tons of beets, produc- 
ing an average of 6,022.000 pounds of sugar 
in 1904. The beets tested 14 per cent, in 1903 
and 15 per cent, in 1904. 

The writer in 1903 interviewed 103 beet 
growers for the State labor department and 



244 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



found 71 of them believed beets to be their 
most profitable crop on a limited acreage, and 
64 were certain the value of farm lands had 
advanced, while the rest thought the values 
stationary or did not know which. Just a look 
at the records of the register of deed's office in 
Bay County will set at rest all doubt about the 
increase in land values and increased demand 
for farm lands in recent years. And it is 
something more than a coincidence that this 
boom dates back no further than the introduc- 
tion of the beet sugar industry. 

The banks and business houses of Bay 
City offer another convincing proof of the 
benefits conferred on Bay County by the in- 
troduction of the beet sugar industry. Most 
of the humlreds of thousands of dollars, paid 
out each fall in ready cash by the factories to 
the farmers, find their way into the various 
avenues of business, buying more comforts for 
the farm home, improving the farm property 
generally, lifting mortgages and opening up the 
rural townships. Only this very month of 
April, 1905, another large addition has been 
made to the colony of German farmers from 
Illinois, in Kawkawlin township, drawn hither 
by the fine farming country and the ready and 
rich market facilities. Garfield, Gibson, Mount 
Forest and Pinconning townships, five years 
ago sparsely settled, are being rapidly cleared 
by industrious and hardy farmers, so that ere 
long the entire county will come within the 
virile meaning of the title "Garden Spot of 
Michigan." The soil, climate, drainage, and 
fine road system are here, the muscle, brawn 
and brains are here ; the rest must follow ! The 
beet sugar industry has given Bay City a com- 
manding position in the agricultural and indus- 
trial aaffirs of our country, and hence has done 
much to increase the value of all other farm 
products. 



AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS. 

With the advent of the beet sugar industry 
came the raising of chicory on a large scale, 
and to-day Bay County chicory has a world- 
wide reputation. The two local factories will 
increase their output from 2,500 to 3.500 tons 
of chicory this year, and are planning more 
additions for next year. 

The county still holds its leading place in 
the production of grains, the average yield per 
acre and the quality being the very best in 
Michigan. The large gristmill and grain ele- 
vators of Hine & Chatfield and Bromfield & 
Colvin, on the East Side, and of the Franken- 
lust Flouring Company, together with the Au- 
burn grain elevator, provide a ready market 
for Bay County's grain supply. 

The Bay City Sanitary Milk Company, 
Ltd.. two cheese factories at Amelith. one at 
.-\rn. three at Auburn, one at Beaver, one at 
Bentley, one at Linwood, and one at Willard, 
with five institutions producins^ the finest dairy 
butter, indicate the development of the coun- 
ty's dairy interests. 

The Beutel canning factory, on the site of 
the old Sage mill, uses up the product of many 
acres and many orchards. 

The two four-story brick blocks occupied 
by the Harry X. Hammond Seed Company, 
Ltd., on Adams and Jefferson streets, are hives 
of a new and growing industry locally. Sev- 
eral hundred men and woman are employed 
during the season sorting and packing the seed 
for shipment, which is grown on the rich fields 
of Bay County ! 

A dozen large produce houses handle the 
garden truck of surrounding farms, with sev- 
eral smaller distributing plants on convenient 
railroad points in the heart of our farming 
district. Thousands of dollars worth of su- 
perior garden products are annually shipped 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



245 



from Bay City, principally to Chicago and the 
far East. This steadily increasing business de- 
mands at an early day the erection of a well- 
equipped and well-situated public market 
place. This much needed improvement has 
been long in abeyance, and should be one of 
the first great concerns of Greater Bay City. 
The 75 miles of macadamized stone roads in- 
vite the farmer to come here with his farm 
products, even from far distances. Conven- 
iences for marketing this product quickly and 
conveniently would bring still more of this 
business. Let us have a public market, and at 
once! Modern metliods and experience have 
shown that hauling by wagon for long dis- 
tances is more expensive than shipments by 
rail in large quantities, hence more railroad 
facilities would also be a boon to our rural 
districts. 

The Bay County Agricultural Society in 
the day of Judge Isaac Marston was a leader 
in Michigan. In late years it has acquired a 
most desirable Fair Grounds and half-mile race 
track par excellence, on the eastern limits 
of Bay City, just north of the eastern terminal 
of Center avenue, and within easy reach of our 
oldest and most advanced townships. Yet our 
county fairs in recent years have not been rep- 
resentative of our county's standing in the ag- 
ricultural world ! Our progressive farmers and 
business men should take hold of the annual 
fair and make it what it should be, representa- 
tive of the highest and best in the agricultural 
and dairying interests of Bay County. Each 
progressive and public-spirited farmer's family 
should be able to spare at least three days once 
in each year, for mutual comparison, study, 
recreation and encouragement. The county 
has provided all the facilities in the beautiful 
Fair Grounds; but for some inexplicable rea- 
son, the property has been woefully neglected 
in the last 10 years. Eugene Fifield, of Bay 



City, is president of the Michigan State Agri- 
cultural Society in 1905, a compliment no less 
to his years of devoted work for Michigan's 
annual agricultural fair than to the county he 
represents ! And i f a great gathering of our 
farmers and farm products is such a good thing 
for the State, why not a similar annual reunion 
of our sons of toil, right here at home? The 
results will justify the great effort now neces- 
sary to revive interest and zeal in our Bay 
County Agricultural Society and our annual 
fair! Let every enterprising and intelligent 
farmer be up and doing! Verily our rural pop- 
ulation has gained much in recent years ! Bay 
County is screened from end to end and from 
side to side by the wires that furnish the tele- 
phone right in the homes of our farmers. And 
our splendid road system assured us at once a 
complete list of rural free mail delivery routes. 
There is scarcely a corner of the county that 
does not now get its daily paper as regidarly 
as the city folk. Surely Bay County leads in 
all these things, and the leadership of our 
farmers should be in evidence at the annua? 
fair, in an up-to-date city market, and enough 
beet acreage to assure us forever the business 
benefits of this industry ! Let the fair title 
"Garden Spot of Michigan" be no mere play 
of words. Do not leave everything to Prov- 
idence and your good neighbor ! Work to win, 
and win you must! 



FISH. 

One of the attractions in this valley for the 
aboriginal Indians was the unlimited supply of 
fish that could be secured just for the trying. 
The earliest settlers never feared a famine, for 
the river and bay were alive with the finny 
tribes. The earliest settlers of Bay City di- 
vided their time between lumbering and fish- 



246 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



ing. As early as i860 the export of fish from 
Bay City was vaUied at over $50,000 annually. 
Few people even now realize the importance of 
this industry. In 1905 it has resolved itself 
into a veritable science. 

There are two kinds of commercial fisher- 
men. — those on the river, and those fishing on 
the bay, — and their methods and catches vary 
vastly. River fishing is best in spring and fall, 
Avhen the fish seek the creeks and branches for 
spawning, and then the catches on the bay 
shore are enormous. In summer the campaign 
is carried on far out in the bay and lake, while 
in winter the spear fishermen try their luck 
through the thick ice of Saginaw Bay. The 
£sh are packed in barrels in alternate layers on 
ice. and are shipped as far East as New York 
City. 

Despite the efforts of the State and Federal 
fish hatcheries, the supply is gradually dimin- 
ishing, owing chiefly to the rapacity of the 
fishermen themselves, who block the streams 
where the fish go to spawn, and who. despite 
the strict surveillance of the State game war- 
dens, catch many undersized fish. Like the 
hinibermen who slaughtered the forests ruth- 
lessly and heedlessly, these fishermen may some 
day find their occupation gone, just for the lack 
of a little foresight and good business judg- 
ment, for the fish supply of lake, bay and river 
is no more inexhaustible, than was the lumber 
supply. 

Trap nets are used on the river and bay, 
and gill nets on the lake. Pickerel, perch and 
bass are caught mainly on the river and bay, 
while sturgean, lake trout and white fish pre- 
dominate in the lake. The best season usually 
is April, May and June. Winter spearing 
through the ice is variable, the sliant}^ village 
sheltering from 500 to 2.000 souls, according 
to working: conditions and the run of the fish. 



River fishing is increasing in importance, sev- 
eral hundred men finding it a paying pursuit. 

The fishing fleets are annually growing, 
and bay and lake fishing are also increasing. 
Beebe & Company, the Trombleys, the Lourim 
brothers, George Penniman and Frederick W. 
Benson have been in this business for more 
than 25 years, while Robert Beutel, W. P. 
Kavanaugh, D. A. Trumpour Company, W. E. 
Fisk, Dormer Company and Saginaw Bay Fish 
Company are among the larger and more re- 
cent entries into this paying industry. Ang- 
ling for sport and food is open to all and is 
the delight of many people each season. 



VARIED INDUSTRIES. 

So closely interwoven are the mutual in- 
terests of Bay County, that an injury to either 
the industrial or agricultural interests is bound 
to injure the other. \Mien all the homes of 
Bay City are filled with well-paid and con- 
tented people, the farmer will have a ready 
market for his products right at his doors, 
prices will be good and land values increase. 
On the other hand bountiful harvests mean 
much ready cash to our rural population, with 
increased purchasing power, and correspond- 
ing prosperity for the business institutions of 
Bay City. Many of our farmers find steady 
employment each winter in the fishing and 
other industries, an advantage not enjoyed by 
many farm communities, most of whom 
throughout the country can do little but sit 
around and eat up during the winter the ac- 
cumulations from the summer's work and 
harvests. 

The ship-building industry has done much 
for Bay City in the last 30 years, and inci- 
dentally furnished employment for many farm- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



249 



ers (luring the winter seasons. Bay City has 
ever offered unrivaled facihties for ship-build- 
ing. Practically unlimited supplies of oak and 
other timber were at hand for the wooden ves- 
sels of a decade ago. The presence of the broad 
and deep Saginaw River, on which hundreds 
of vessels, from the smallest to the very lar- 
gest and latest addition to the fleet of the Great 
Lakes, have been launched here for 50 years, 
and without one single mishap, meant much to 
the industry. 

During all those years, the local ship-build- 
ing plants kept pace with the growing demands 
of the lake traffic. The schooner "Savage," 
built for river traffic in 1831-37: the stern- 
wheeler "Buena Vista," all hold and no cabin, 
launched in 1848, commanded by Daniel Burns, 
he of State-wide celebrity as a humorist and 
buffoon; some fishing boats built about 1849; 
and the first large boats built here by H. D. 
Braddock & Company in 1857-58, the '"Essex" 
and "Bay City," — all were noted craft in their 
day and generation. 

Later, Ballentine & Company turned out 
some large and good lake craft, and with the 
advent of Capt. James Davidson the local ship- 
building industry assumed large proportions. 
In 1875 the product of the shipyards was 
placed at more than half a million dollars. In 
1 88 1 Crosthwaite's yard built three vessels 
worth over $100,000; Davidson's yard, two 
vessels, costing $180,000; Wheeler & Crane 
built and rebuilt five vessels, at a cost of $395.- 
000, while the Bay City Dry Dock, at the foot 
of Atlantic street, earned $30,000. In 1883 
Wheeler & Carne built a steam barge for Cap- 
tain Forbes, 1961/2 feet keel, 34 feet beam and 
14 feet hold, a monster boat for those days, 
but a midget compared to the "Sylvania" with 
its length of 593 feet, launched at this same 
yard in April, 1905. 



In 1883 Captain Davidson was building 
the largest boat then on the Great Lakes, ex- 
treme length, 287 feet, 40 feet beam, 213^ feet 
hold, heavily trussed, and for some years the 
pride of Bay City. In the 10 years from 1885 
to 1895, Captain Davidson built some of the 
finest and fastest wooden vessels in the world. 
The "City of Paris," "City of Berlin," "City 
of Venice," "City of Rome," and sister craft, 
are to-day the proud leaders of the remaining 
wooden ships on the Great Lakes. The advent 
of the whalel)ack and other styles of modern 
steel steamers have relegated the wooden ves- 
sels to the rear in recent years, but the David- 
son shipyard still finds plenty to do in building 
smaller river craft, rebuilding the worthy 
wooden vessels still in commission and in gen- 
eral dry dock work. The plant is still one of 
the finest on the Lakes and may yet be con- 
verted into an iron and steel ship-building 
plant. 

Hon. F. W. Wheeler, now of Detroit, 
early foresaw the changes coming in the build- 
ing of lake craft, and he forthwith kept pace 
with the most advanced ideas of iron and steel 
ship-building. The immense shipyard north 
of the Michigan Central Railroad bridge, has 
nearly a mile of river front, immense work- 
shops, mills and power cranes, and when the 
shipyards of the Great Lakes were placed in a 
trust by the American Ship Building Company, 
with headquarters at Cleveland, Wheeler's 
modern plant was one of the first to be taken 
into the combine. Since then this fine yard 
has secured its share of the new steel ships built 
on the Lakes, and has the distinction in 1905 
of turning out the three largest steel steam- 
ers afloat on fresh water. Time and again 
rumors have had this yard transferred to other 
points, but the fact that the very best craft are 
even now assigned to the West Bay City Ship 



2;0 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Building Company's yard is the very best proof 
that the location here meets modern require- 
ments. 

Labor troubles, often ill-advised and work- 
ing only mutual injury, have blighted the ship- 
building industry at this yard on several oc- 
casions, invariably ending with loss all around 
and not one thing gained by anyone. It al- 
most proved a case of killing the goose that 
laid the golden egg, and it is to be hoped that 
the local shipyard employees will in the future 
receive the best wages offered similar crafts in 
other lake ship-building plants, as in the past, 
which to a layman appears eminently fitting 
and fair, and under no circumstances again lend 
themselves a lead a new and arbitrary wage 
basis fight, unsupported by other shipyard 
employees, whose chestnuts they were evidently 
trying to pull out of the fire. The net result 
in years past has been the driving of new boat 
contracts to these outside yards, compelling 
local ship-builders to leave home and follow 
the work in other ports. It must be self-evi- 
dent to all thinking men, that the local yard 
could not compete with these outside ship- 
yards, if the cost of labor here was more ex- 
pensive than elsewhere. Our cheap fuel, fine 
yards and harbor facilities will meet this com- 
petition, if the cost of labor is the same as else- 
where, and will preserve for us one of our old- 
est, largest, and most profitable industries. 

Since the keel was laid for the monster 
steamer "Sylvania." the West Bay City Ship 
Building Company has employed nearly i.ooo 
skilled mechanics steadily all winter, and the 
work now on hand will keep the yard running 
at capacity until next summer. By that time 
other contracts are expected, and the outlook is 
indeed favorable. Captain Davidson during 
1904 employed nearly 500 men, according to 
the State labor commissioner's annual report, 
at $2.58 on the average per day. 



The Bay City Yacht Works and the Brooks 
Boat Pattern Company are recent additions to 
Bay City's boat industry, and their trade al- 
ready extends around the world. Yachts built 
here may be found in the Gulf of Mexico, on 
the Atlantic and the Pacific, and in far-off 
Japan. Both plants are constantly increasing 
their facilities and output, and incidentally do- 
ing much to advertise the city abroad. 

The Industrial Works, William L. Clem- 
ents, president and Charles R. Wells, secretary 
and treasurer, is far and away the oldest and 
most reliable employer of labor in Bay City. 
From a modest beginning in 1868, doing much 
marine repair work, this plant has gradually 
grown to its present mammoth proportions, 
covering two squares on the river front, from 
nth street to Columbus avenue, with substan- 
tial and large brick buildings. The railroad 
cranes and wrecking cars manufactured by this 
concern are unrivaled and are protected the 
world over by patents of great value. This 
big plant has run to its capacity with day and 
night crews for many years, barring a few 
months last year, when matters of manage- 
ment were being adjusted. Nearly 1,000 
skilled mechanics are on the pay-roll of this 
institution. 

The Smalley Motor Company, Ltd., N. A. 
Eddy, chairman and James B. Smalley, treas- 
urer and general manager, is another new and 
substantial institution, with a plant on the river 
front at the foot of Trumbull street built in 
1903 ; employment is given to about 200 skilled 
workingmen the year round. 

The National Cycle Manufacturing Com- 
pany employs about 150 skilled men, and the 
product is sold all over the country, as well as 
abroad, a living message of our growing im- 
portance as a city of diversified industries. 

The M. Garland Company, 83 men; Na- 
tional Boiler Works, 35 men : ^MacKinnon I\Ian- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



2!;i 



ufacturing Company, yi men ; Valley W'ind 
& Engine Company, 30 men ; Alert Pipe & 
Supply Company, 45 men; Bay City traction 
car shops, 51 men; Valley Iron Works, 35 
men ; Bailey Metal Furniture Fixture Com- 
pany, 25 men; Marine Iron Company, 45 men; 
Bay City Iron Company, 47 men ; Bay City 
Boiler Company, 49 men ; brass foundry, iq 
men ; Wilson & Wanless, 27 men ; Valley Auto 
Company, ig men; Michigan Central Railroad 
repair shops, 43 men ; Valley Sheet Metal 
Works, 15 men; and Excelsior Foundry Com- 
pany, employing nearly 100 men, indicate the 
extent and value of Bay City's iron industry, 
enhanced by many smaller concerns, who work 
in the same lines of business. What we need 
now is smelting works for ore, made possible 
by cheap coal right at our doors, and our un- 
surpassed water shipping facilities. 

The Hecla Portland Cement & Coal Com- 
pany, capitalized at $5,000,000, in 1902-03 
constructed its million dollar plant just south 
of the lighthouse, with a mile of deep-water 
frontage on the river. Julius Stroh, the mil- 
lionaire brewer of Detroit, was the main stock- 
holder, and the little settlement nine miles 
from West Branch, where the marl beds are 
located, is named "Stroh" in his honor. The 
dried marl will be hauled in 50-ton dump rail- 
road cars to the million dollar plant in Bay 
City. The drying plant has a capacity of 1,000 
tons of marl per day. The company located 
four coal fields : Hecla mine No. 4 in Frank- 
enlust township has proven a good producer, 
while the others — one near Kawkawlin, the 
second west of the city, and the third just east 
of .Vuburn — have not yet Ijcen dc\-eloped. They 
are planned to produce 1,500 tons of coal daily, 
300 tons for the use of the cement and kindred 
plants, the rest for shipment by water, for 
which huge and modern coal docks are to be 
constructed. The company owns its own rail- 



way to the marl beds and coal mines and em- 
ploys its own rolling stock. The clay and shale 
used in the manufacture of Portland cement is 
secured in the same shafts with the coal, and 
the plant as now completed has a capacity of 
3,000 barrels of cement daily. In 1904 the 
stockholders went into litigation, which is still 
pending, and hence our most promising new 
industry is awaiting the slow process of un- 
tangling the status of the company's affairs by 
legal procedure. 

The North American Chemical Company is 
another million dollar plant, of which Bay 
County may be justly proud. This mammoth 
plant furnished the match-makers of America 
with the chlorate of potash used on match tips, 
and came to this country in 1898 from Liver- 
pool, England, because the Dingley protective 
tariff compelled them to do so. in order to hold 
their American trade. The company is located 
just outside of the city limits, on 250 acres of 
the old McGraw sawmill site, and also owns 
and operates the Bay coal mine in Frankenlust 
township. M. L. Davies is the general man- 
ager and since coming here in 1899. has be- 
come actively identified with the interests of 
Bay City and, with his charming wife, has be- 
come a decided acquisition to the business and 
social life of our community. .Although Mr. 
Davies is a typical Englishmen, he stops the 
wheels at the plant just one day in each year, 
July 4th, the several hundred employees other- 
wise never losing an hour. Since 1898 this 
plant has paid out in wages $615,000, and to 
the merchants of Bay City $1,250,000, and at 
the Bay coal mine from 1899 to November 
30, T904. $275,800 in wages, and $150,000 to 
our merchants for supplies ! The chemical pro- 
ducts of this plant include bleaches and dyes 
for dress goods, salt, chlorate of soda, chlorate 
of potash, and other chemicals, the process of 
making which is a secret and patented. The 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



main building is 550 by 220 feet witb numer- 
ous smaller buildings of brick. Fourteen boil- 
ers and tbree Corliss engines of 1,200 horse- 
power run the plant and consume annually 
60,000 tons of coal, mostly slack. It produces 
1,000 tons of the purest white salt daily by the 
grainer and vacuum process. 

Bousfield & Company's woodenware works, 
the largest in the world, is located on six 
squares on the river front, south of Cass ave- 
nue. The company employed 632 men and 
boys in 1904. It ships its product all over the 
country and is one of our oldest and best man- 
ufacturing institutions. The plant of the Han- 
son-Ward Veneer Company is one of the lat- 
est and largest additions to the South End, 
employing 242 men the year round. Handy 
Brothers with 218 men and Bradley, Miller & 
Company with 227 men, on the West Side 
river front, and the E. J. Vance Box Com- 
pany, Ltd., on the East Side, w-ith 141 men, 
are the largest local box shook manufacturers. 
Mershon, Schuette, Parker & Company, with 
131 men, Bradley Miller & Company, with 46 
men, and E. B. Foss, with 112 men, lead in 
the lumber-yard business. The surviving 
sawmills employ the following forces of men, 
according to State census statistics : Samuel 
G. M. Gates, 71 ; Kneeland-Bigelow Company, 
53 ; Campbell-Brown Lumber Company, 37 ; 
Edward C. Hargrave, 84; Morey & Meister, 
55; Wylhe & Buell, 140; J. J. Flood, 87; Wol- 
verine Lumber Company, 34; Catherwood & 
Glover, 32 ; and Kern Manufacturing Com- 
pany. 144. W. D. Young & Company's hard- 
wood mill leads the country in maple flooring, 
employing 233 men, and running the wood 
alcohol plant in connection with 55 men. The 
Goldie hoop mill is one of the best in the coun- 
try, with 138 men, and the Standard hoop mill 
employs 95 men. The Quaker Shade Roller 
Company is a new institution, with 105 men 



and 41 women, and the ^Michigan Pipe Com- 
pany is an old reliable institution, with 41 men. 
Smaller box factories are those of B. H. Bris- 
coe & Company, 46 men ; Bindner Box Com- 
pany, 53 ; William H. Nickless, 42 ; Fred G. 
Eddy, 30 ; Bay City Box Company, 79. The 
following named concerns operate sash, door 
and building supply mills : Matthew Lamont, 
employing 68 men ; Lewis Manufacturing Com- 
P^"y> 53; G. Hine, 46; Sheldon, Kamm & 
Company, Ltd., 42; Heumann & Trump, 41. 
Cooper houses : Goldie Manufacturing Com- 
pany, 96; Beutel Cooperage & \\^oodenware 
Company, 61; Aaron Wheeler, 53; Edwin F., 
Rouse, 39. The Bay City Woodworking Com- 
pany employs 32 men and 24 women ; Maltby 
Lumber Company (cedar posts), 31 men. and 
Bay City Cedar Company, 21 men. The 
Creamery Package Manufacturing Company 
has 29 men ; Walworth & Neville Manufactur- 
ing Company (cross arms), 59; the Beutel can- 
ning factory, 19 men and 36 women; the Stone 
Island brick and tile works, 44 men ; Bay 
County Rock & Stone Company, 21 men. 
Three large and modern breweries employ over 
100 men, and supply much outside territory. 
The Scheurmann shoe factory is a modest be- 
ginning for a promising industry, with 14 men 
and 10 women. The Victory shirt w'aist fac- 
tory is another innovation, with 65 women. 
The Bay City Knitting Company now occupies 
a four-story brick building on First and Water 
streets, has the most modern machinery and is 
constantly branching out. It claims to-day to 
be the largest order-filling hosiery factory in 
America, has 25 men and 83 women on its 
pay-roll, and will practically double its out- 
put of "Star" hosiery this very year. The 
Galbraiths established this business, from 
humble beginnings in 1899, and by persistent 
pushing and good workmanship have created 
one of our most promising manufacturing in- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



253 



stitutions. These and a hundred other Ijut 
smaller concerns are our creati\e industries, 
and the roll of employees, taken from the State 
labor reports, is an encouraging indication that 
we still have many wealth producers in our 

14 



ranks. The big sawmills have been super- 
seded by smaller but more enduring industries. 
And this must be but a beginning, for there is 
plenty of room for more like unto them. 



CHAPTER XL 



The Bench and Bar and the }iIedical Profession. 
The BcncJi and Bar. 

No partial justice holds the unequal scales — 

No pride of caste a brother's rights assails — 

No tyrant's mandates echo from this wall. 

Holy to Freedom and the Rights of All ! 

But a fair field, where mind may close with mind 

Free as the sunshine and the chainless wind ; 

Where the high trust is fixed on Truth alone, 

And bonds and fetters from the soul are thrown; 

Where wealth and rank, and worldly pomp, and might 

Yield to the presence of the True and Right ! 

— /;7ji7/(V;-. 



One of the first institutions required in a 
community of pioneers has invariably been 
some court of justice, where law could be 
expounded, justice administered and other 
duties of a public nature performed. Hence 
the justice of the peace in this settlement was 
an important personage, who applied the prin- 
ciples of law and justice to the whole range 
of offenses, from neighborhood quarrels to 
murders, who tied and untied nuptial knots, 
and most of whose time was taken up in set- 
tling land claims and controversies. 

Michigan's judiciary system has undergone 
many changes since the French first settled 
Detroit about 1701. Edicts of kings, orders 
of military commanders, decrees of imperial 
parliaments and of provincial governors, ordi- 
nances of the Congress, enactments of territo- 
rial governors and councils, provisions of State 
constitutions, and laws enacted by the Legisla- 



ture, these and more have constituted the su- 
preme authority in this part of the globe from 
the "Contume de Paris" through the devious 
pathways of 200 years down to 1905. 

The lurid experiences of Bay County's first 
justice court, in a dingy blockhouse on the river 
front, would, if fully compiled, compare with 
some of the court scenes portrayed in the Ari- 
zona Kicker. Land lookers, roving sailors, Li- 
dians, frontier rowdies, these and worse at one 
time or another looked over the settlement, and 
invariably bumped against some one or some- 
thing in their explorations, that would end in 
the justice court. 

More dignified but none the less strenuous 
were the duties and sessions of the loth Judi- 
cial Circuit, to which Bay County belonged in 
1859, the circuit comprising Bay, Isabella, 
Losco, Gratiot, Midland, Alpena and Saginaw 
counties. The first sessions were held by Judge 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



-OD 



Wilber F. W'oodworth on and after April 3, 
1859, in a building on the river front where the 
Denison Block now stands. 

On January 31, 1859, Peter Van Gestle 
killed his countryman, Peter Van Wert, and at 
the April term of court the murderer was con- 
victed and sentenced to solitary confinement for 
life. This was the first murder trial in Bay 
County, and the settlers attended the court ses- 
sions en iiiassc, many of them sitting patiently 
•outside, as the court room was too small to 
admit all. picking up the trial crumbs that fell 
through the doorwa}'. 

The first lawyers in Bay County were Hon. 
James Birney, Chester H. Freeman, W. L. 
Sherman, Stephen \\Tight and James Fox, the 
last two remaining but a short time. Judge 
Andrew C. Maxwell came from Pontiac in 
1857, and for nearly half a century was one of 
the best known practitioners and the most 
unique figure before the local bar. Certainly 
his sharp wit and droll manners furnished more 
anecdotes than all the other members of the bar 
combined. He took an active part in the devel- 
opment of the city and county. Hon. Luther 
Beckwith came here in i860, directly after 
graduating from the University of Michigan. 
He was prosecutor from 1863 to 1867, was 
alderman for years, an able jurist and a good 
citizen. Judge Isaac Marston came here in 
1862, having studied under Judge Cooley at 
the University of Michigan, and for 20 years 
he was an honored member of the local 1)ar, 
removing to Detroit in 1882. In ]\Iarch, 1863, 
Hon. Herschel H. Hatch came here to enter a 
partnership with Judge Marston, and in 1864 
Judge James Birney joined the firm, which 
under the title, Birney, Marston & Hatch, was 
considered one of the strongest combinations 
of legal lights in jNIichigan. Judge Marston's 
election to the Supreme Court in 1875 (lissolved 
the partnership, Mr. Hatch later taking in Ed- 



gar A. Cooley, at present president of the Bay 
County Bar Association. The late Cushman 
K. Davis, Ex-Governor of Minnesota, studied 
here under the late Judge Andrew C. Maxwell 
in 1863-64. C. H. Denison was here from 1863 
to 1879, and then became a leading attorney of 
New York City. Hon. Emil Anneke was a 
graduate of the University of Berlin, took part 
in the revolutionary struggle in Germany in 
1848, and with hundreds of other liljeral- 
minded young men sought his fortune in this 
country. In 1862-65 he was Auditor General 
of Michigan, and became a notable addition to 
the local l)ar in 1874. 

Looking back over this span of 30 years we 
find that in 1875 there were 42 members of the 
Bay County Bar Association, including Judge 
Sanford ]M. Green, then presiding over this i8th 
Judicial Circuit. Thus early do we find, in ad- 
dition to the earliest arrivals already named, the 
men who in future years were destined to pre- 
side over the local Circuit Court : Judge George 
P. Cobb, who came here in September. 1868, 
after graduating from the University of ^lichi- 
gan, did not finish his schooling until peace re- 
leased him from the 5th ^Michigan Cawalry in 

1866. In 1870 he became associated with Judge 
T. C. Grier and the late dean of the local bar, 
Hon. Archibald McDonell. Judge Theodore 
F. Shepard, at present presiding over this cir- 
cuit, came from New York to Bay County in 

1867, being the first attorney on the West Side, 
and although his offices for the greater part of 
the time since have been mostly on the East 
Side, he has done much toward the de\-elopment 
of his home community, taken an active part in 
the educational work, and has ever been one of 
the county's sterling citizens. Hon. Thomas A. 
E. \\'eadock, who for three terms represented 
this district in Congress, earned enough money 
teaching school to allow him to graduate from 
the University of }ilichigan in 1873 and the 



256 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



next year he came here to enter a partnership 
with Graeme Wilson, later taking his brother, 
John C. Weadock, now one of Michigan's ablest 
corporation lawyers, into partnership with him. 
In 1905 this firm is still among the leaders of 
the profession in this State. Chester L. Col- 
lins, just elected circuit judge for the term 
1906-1 1, is another of the patriotic class of men, 
who served their country in the Civil War, be- 
fore taking up life's work in other fields. 
Graduated from the University of Iowa, he 
began the practice of law in Knoxville, Iowa, 
in 1869, coming to Bay City in 1875, so that his 
local practice just falls within the scope oi the 
three decades. Griffith H. Francis, present 
judge of probate, and graduate of the Univer- 
sity of Michigan^, also came here just 30 years 
ago, and in that long period has acquired a host 
of friends by his sterling worth. Thomas E. 
Webster, judge of probate 1880-86, graduated 
from the University of Michigan in 1873, and 
forthwith began practice in Bay City, and in 
1905 is still one of our leading attorneys and 
citizens. W. French Morgan, the courteous 
and able deputy under three atlministrations of 
the probate ofifice, is a scion of Kentucky, glad 
to escape the prejudices of his native heath in 



1861, 



coming direct 



to Bav Citv, where 



years ago he was studying law, being admitted 
to the bar in 1S78, and in 1905 he is still the 
indispensable walking encyclopedia of the Pro- 
bate Court. Fatio Colt, now of Midland ; Ed- 
gar A. Cooley, John L. Stoddard, Daniel Sian- 
gan, Henry Selleck, John Golden, Samuel L. 
Brigham, and John Brigham are among the 
veterans who can look back on more than 30 
years of practice before the bar of Bay County. 
In 1905 we find the activities of these veterans 
and their professional associates of younger 
years extending far beyond the confines of Bay 
County. The fame of Bay City lawyers has 
gone abroad, and they will be found in import- 



ant litigation before practically every Circuit 
Court in Michigan, and their ability has long 
been recognized and acknowledged before the 
highest tribunal of our State, — the Supreme 
Court. 

The following review of the attorneys who 
have practiced and accjuired prominence and 
success in their profession, together with the 
Bay County Bar Association's officials and theii 
work for 1905, is from the pen of one of Bay 
City's rising young attorneys, whose father 
achieved a splendid professional record on this 
very same field little more than a decade ago. 



The history of the bench and bar of Bay 
County commences with the settlement of 
Lower Saginaw, as the trading post near the 
mouth of the Saginaw was called in the early 
days. Bay County was organized in 1857 and 
at that time extended far up the lake shore and 
formed a part of the Seventh Judicial Circuit. 
Two years later Bay County was added to the 
loth Judicial Circuit, over which Hon. Wilber 
F. Woodworth presided until he resigned in 
1861, his unexpired term being filled by Hon. 
James Birney by appointment of the Governor. 
Judge Birney was succeeded in 1865 by Hon. 
Jabez G. Sutherland, a jurist widely known as 
an authority on general practice and a text- 
book writer of high standing, who held the 
office until 1870, when he resigned to accept 
an election to Congress. 

The most noteworthy of the pioneers of the 
Bay County bar was Hon. James G. Birney, a 
gentleman of birth, culture and education, who 
had already attained national prominence as 
candidate of the Free Soil party for the Presi- 
dency, and who had spent the best part of his 
life and freely expended his ample fortune in 
the struggle for the abolition of slavery. In 
his declining years, seeking rest and relief from 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



^57 



the burden which he felt he was no longer able 
to bear, desiring only rest and oblivion from 
the hatred which pursued those who attacked 
the "peculiar institution," he found peace and 
quiet on the banks of the placid Saginaw and 
observed from a distance the progress of that 
struggle the result of which was to him never 
in doubt. While never again engaging in ac- 
tive practice, his advice and counsel were eager- 
ly sought, and fortunate indeed was the hardy 
woodsman or pioneer farmer whose claim or 
title rested upon the opinion of the hardy patriot 
Birney. He lived to see the beginning of the 
end of the contest and to know the greatness of 
the success for \\hich he had so long contended, 
apparently in ^•ain. 

His son, Hon. James Birney, for a few years 
filled the vacanc}' in the judgeship of the cir- 
cuit, which comprised the counties of Bay, Mid- 
land and Arenac. He presided on the bench 
with distinction and remained in active practice 
as counsel for many years thereafter, retiring 
in 1892. 

Hon. Chester H. Freeman, another of the 
early lights of the bar, settled on the banks 
of the Saginaw when the world hereabouts 
was voung, and until verv recent vears con- 
tinned to reside in the community which he had 
seen spring from the wilderness. 

Hon. Andrew C. Maxwell, afterward cir- 
cuit judge from 1894 to 1900, was a contem- 
porary of the earliest comers to the lower end 
of the Saginaw Valley. A man of strong per- 
sonality, aggressive, able and not much given 
to the observance of nice distinctions, it was in- 
evitable that he should have had strong friends 
and bitter enemies. He died in Bay City in the 
year 1902. 

Thomas C. Grier came to Bay City about 
i860. Upon the creation of the i8th Judicial 
Circuit in 1871, he was elected on the Demo- 
cratic ticket as circuit judge. For many years 



he had held a high position at the bar. and the 
choice of the Democrats was the choice of the 
community at large, no opponent being pre- 
sented. His death soon after assuming the er- 
mine deprived the community of a useful citi- 
zen, a good neighbor and a judge who gave 
promise of a career on the bench successful 
abo\'e the average. 

He was succeeded upon the bench by Hon. 
San ford M. Green, than whom few men ha\'e 
had greater influence in shaping Michigan's 
laws and system of practice. Compiler of the 
"Revised Statutes of 1846," judge of the Cir- 
cuit and Stipreme courts under the old system 
in vogue before the adoption of the constitu- 
tion of 1850, a writer of standard text-books 
and an attorney of high standing at the bar, he 
brought to the service of the circuit a wealth of 
knowledge and experience far beyond that of 
the average jurist. He was reelected without 
opposition, and was allowed to retire only when 
advancing years brought an end to his labors. 
He died in 1903. He was followed to the 
gra\-e by the affection and esteem of the bar of 
the entire State and the memory of his work 
will last as long as the bench and bar of Michi- 
gan endiu-e. 

Hon. George P. Cobb took up the practice 
of the law in Bay City in 1868. Industrious 
and careful, he quickly attained standing at the 
bar, was associated for many years with the 
late lamented Hon. Archibald ^IcDonell, and 
finally in 1888 was elected, on an independent 
ticket, to the circuit bench. His careful, kindly 
nature made practice before him a pleasure and 
he retired from the bench with the esteem of all 
in 1894. He is still engaged in active practice 
in Bay City. 

Few men have been called to the bench 
under such trying circumstances as was Hon. 
Theodore F. Shepard in 1900. The declining 
years of his predecessor's incumbency had re- 



258 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



suited in a serious disarrangement of the rou- 
tine work of the court and the situation called 
for a man of character and ability above the 
average. Judge Shepard may well be content 
to be judged by the record of his incumbency. 
Possessing the confidence and respect of the bar, 
he quickly restored order, system and dignity 
to the court proceedings and his fairness, pa- 
tience and manifest intention that each litioant 
should have a "square deal" has made his 
record on the bench one which his successors 
may well emulate. His elevation to the bench 
followed a long and successful career as prac- 
titioner, including service as prosecuting attor- 
ney of Bay County and as United States dis- 
trict attorney. He will retire from the bench 
in 1905, to be followed by Hon. Chester L. 
Collins. The last named gentleman is at the 
present time one of the oldest in point of prac- 
tice now at the Bay County bar, and it is per- 
haps enough to say of his character and stand- 
ing in the community that he had the support 
of the entire bar in his contest for the judge- 
ship. 

In glancing down the long list of names of 
attorneys, which have appeared at different 
times upon the roll of the bar of Bay County, 
one is struck by the number that have become 
household words throughout the State and 
some of which have achieved even national 
prominence. JNIen of such standing as the late 
Hon. Isaac Marston, justice of the Supreme 
Court and Attorney General ; Hon. Thomas 
A. E. ^^'ea(lock and Hon. Herschel H. 
Hatch, both now members of the Detroit 
bar and both ex-members of Congress from 
the Tenth Congressional District ; Hon. 
Robert J. Kelley, recently judge of the Al- 
pena circuit and now member of the Battle 
Creek bar, besides many others to whose 
records the limits of this article will not per- 
mit doing full justice, deserve special mention. 



With them may be classed the leaders of the 
bar in a day now long past, such men as 
Hon. Sidney T. Holmes, once judge of the New 
York Supreme Count, and for many years in ac- 
tive practice in Bay County, senior and founder 
of the firm of Holmes, Collins & Stoddard; 
Hon. x\rchibald McDonelk whose recent death 
was felt as a berea\-ement by the entire commu- 
nity; Hon. Luther Beckwith. ^\'indsor Scho- 
field, Graeme Wilson and many another, whose 
name is now but a memory to the old and an 
inspiration to the young practitioners of to-day. 
The older generations were products of the 
times in which they lived, strong men of force- 
ful manner and address, men of affairs as well 
as scholars in the law, and their character is in- 
delibly impressed upon the profession which 
they adorned. Something of the nice theoreti- 
cal training of the schools mav have been want- 
ing, manners and habits may have savored 
somewhat of the rough and ready times and 
community in which they lived, but their ster- 
ling characters, forceful personalities and devo- 
tion to the high ideals of their profession set 
a standard which will tax the energies of suc- 
ceeding generations of practitioners to main- 
tain. 

It would be invidious to atempt to single 
out those members of the present bar whose 
careers and characters owe their success and 
standing to the fact that they builded upon the 
foundation so well laid by their forebears. The 
bar is at present able, active and well-organized. 
Since the earh' "seventies" a bar association 
has existed, which has been lately reorganized 
with the following officers : President, Edgar 
A. Cooley; vice-president. John C. Weadock; 
secretary and treasurer, Frank S. Pratt. An 
annual banquet and standing active committees 
on grievances, etc., are notable features of the 
new organization. 

In 1899 the Law Library was organized. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



259 



which by gradual additions has accumulated 
several thousand volumes and is one of the best 
equipped in the State. While annual dues are 
exacted from members of the bar for its sup- 
port, it is at all times open free of charge to 
judges and public officials, and has proven of 
great value to the public as well as the profes- 
sion. The library is situated in the Sheerer 
Block and has a librarian in constant attend- 
ance. 

Among those now engaged in the active 
work of the bar whose wide and active practice 
has conferred a leadership might be mentioned : 
Edgar A. Cooley, for many years associated 
with the late Justice Marston and Hon. Her- 
schel H. Hatch, and now with John C. Hewitt, 
in corporation and general practice; John C. 
\\'eadock, now, as for 20 years past, associated 
with his brother, Hon. Thomas A. E. Wead- 
ock, under the firm name of T. A. E. & J. C. 
^^'eadock, and whose leadership extends to the 
community at large; Hezekiah '\L Gillett and 
John E. Simonson who for over a quarter of a 
century have been associated in practice ; DeVere 
Hall, John L. Stoddard, M. L. Courtright, Lee 
E. Joslyn, Frank S. Pratt, U. R. Loranger, C. 
E. Pierce and John E. Kinnane. men of large 
practice and experience and well-known to the 
profession at large throughout the State; and 
Chester L. Collins^ whose recent election to the 
office of circuit judge crowns a long career of 
useful and successful work in general practice. 

Among the younger members, upon whose 
shoulders the burden of the work of the bar is 
falling, might be mentioned Edward E. An- 
neke and Lewis P. Coumans, for six years 
prosecuting attorney and assistant prosecuting 
attorney, respectively; Edward S. Clark, of 
Simonson, Gillett & Clark; James E. Duffy, 
until the death of Archibald ^NIcDonell, asso- 
ciated with the latter under the firm name of 
McDonell & Duffy; Samuel G. Houghton, the 



first city attorney of Greater Bay City; Pearl 
M. Haller, Richard A. JMcKay, Frank P. Mc- 
Cormick, Albert INIcClatchey, Horace Tupper, 
Jr., Brakie J. Orr, recently city attorney of 
Bay City for three tenns and now prosecuting 
attorney; Archibald H. ]\Ic]\Iillan, Delano H. 
Thompson, Luther G. Beckwith^ Fred W. De- 
Foe. R. T. Waddle and James E. Brockway 
(member of the Legislature). Hon. Griffith 
H. Francis presides over the Probate Court, 
two ex-judges of which, Hon. Hamilton M. 
Wright and Hon. Thomas E. ^^'ebster, are 
still engaged in active practice in Bay City. 
James Donnelly has for many years added to 
his professional labors the burden of the duties 
of alderman of Bay City. James Van Kleeck, 
late State commander of the G. A. R., and Isaac 
A. Gilbert were for many years associated and 
both are now engaged in practice. Edward W. 
Porter and Joseph P. Haffey still keep up the 
firm of which the late Henry Lindner was the 
founder and head. George R. Fox and W. A. 
Collins are circuit court commissioners, and 
Robert L. King, now justice of the peace, has 
given a new and better tone to the practice in 
the lowest court. Lawrence McHugh, a stal- 
wart of the old school, completes a list, partial 
onh'^, of the members of the present bar. To 
attempt to name all, and with justice to their 
lives and careers, is impossible within the limits 
of this article. Let it suffice to say that the 
work of the Bay County bar is known and ap- 
preciated throughout the State and ranks with 
the best. 

The presence of the United States Court for 
the Northern Division of the Eastern District 
of Michigan calls the members frequently to 
meet in contest the best minds of the bars of 
this and the adjoining States in the battles of 
the forum, and in this our bar has never been 
found wanting. If the saying is true that the 
character and welfare of a community is largely 



26o 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



determined by the character of its bench and 
of the men of the bar. who maintain, interpret 
and administer its laws, then may Bay County 
well be congratulated that its welfare and char- 
acter are in such safe hands and so well-estab- 
lished. 

=:-- * * 

Courts.- — The United States Court for the 
Northern Division of the Eastern District of 
Michigan is held in commodious court rooms 
in the Federal Building on the first Tuesdays in 
May and October. The following are officers 
of this court : Judge, H. H. Swan, of Detroit, 
salary $5,000; attorney, W. D. Gordon, of 
Midland, salary $4,000: clerk, W. S. Harsha, 
fees; division clerk. Miss Davison, fees; mar- 
shal, \\'. R. Bates, salary $4,000; deputy mar- 
shal, Lucious W. Tobias, of Bay City; com- 
missioner, ?ilrs. Jennie Wright Jones, of Bay 
City. 

The terms of the i8th Judicial Circuit Court 
begin in "March. May, September and Decem- 
ber. The oflilcers of the court are: Judge, 
Theodore F. Shepard; commissioners, George 
R. Fox and W. A. Collins ; stenographer, A. 
M. Haynes ; officer, Henry Cornell. 

The officers of the Probate Court of Bay 
County are : Judge, Griffith H. Francis ; clerk, 
W. French Morgan. 

Bay City has for many years had a Police 
Court, on a metropolitan plan, over which Wil- 
liam M. Kelley, once county clerk and ever a 
public-spirited citizen, has now presided for 
several terms. Since Greater Bay City became 
an established fact, this court also handles all 
minor cases from the West Side. Under Jus- 
tice Kelley's experienced eye, this court has 
long been a credit to the city. The annual re- 
port of our Police department indicates the 
mass of minor matters coming before this court 
and incidentallv reflects all the weal and woe 



of a 20th century city more plainly than pages 
of subject matter. 

According to the annual report for 1904, 
there came before this court the following 
cases, in which comparisons with the previous 
year are shown : Of abusive language, 21 cases 
were recorded: eight less than in 1903. As- 
sault and battery aggregated 109 cases, a fall- 
ing ofif of 22 cases, as compared with the pre- 
vious year. Attempted rape was charged in 
13 cases, a number larger than the total for 
similar charges during the 10 years preceding 
1902. Cohabitating with a child under 16 
years of age was the basis of arrest in' five 
cases, the largest number for any one year in 
the history of the department. Only two cases 
of enticing girls into houses of ill fame were 
recorded. Disorderly persons, including va- 
grants, were arrested in "]•/ cases. Fifteen cases 
of burglary were recorded, an increase of 11 
over the previous year. Drunkenness showed 
an increase of 76 cases over the previous year, 
481 arrests being made. Ill treatment of chil- 
dren was the cause of nine arrests, an increase 
of three. Petit larceny, while common, 78 cases 
being recorded, was exceeded the previous year 
b}^ 16 cases. Malicious injury to property was 
recorded in 25 cases; the majority of ofifenders 
came from the ranks of the small boys, bent on 
mischief more than on crime. Nineteen children 
were brought in charged with truancy, and of 
juvenile disorderly, 10; of this number, four 
were sent to the Industrial School for Boys, 
and six to the Industrial Home for Girls. Non- 
support caused 17 arrests, exceeding but one 
over the previous year. Of violations of the 
bicycle ordinance, 91 cases were recorded; 
many being first oft'enses, very few fines were 
imposed. Sixteen arrests were made for viola- 
tions of various other city ordinances. The dif- 
ference in the number of lodges cared for is 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



261 



quite noticeable; there were 285 males and 15 
females recorded, against 419 the year previous. 

The following disposition of cases, coming 
before him in 1904, was made by the police 
justice : 

The 1,260 arrests are thus classified : Males, 
1,166 — females, 94; white, 1,243 — colored, 17; 
married, 436 — single, 824; able to read and 
write. 1,188 — not able to read and write, 72. 
The arrests were classified by their nativity as 
follows: United States, 821; Canada, 178; 
Poland, 85; Ireland, 56; Germany, 36; Eng- 
land, 22; Russia, 19; Scotland, 11; Siberia, 
8: Norway, 5; Sweden, 4; Australia, 3; Fin- 
land, Italy, Switzerland and Syria, 2 each; 
Bohemia, China, the Netherlands and New 
Foundland, i each. 



Appealed to Circuit Court 3 

Bail forfeited i 

Committed to County Jail 164 

Complaint withdrawn 27 

Died in Hospital i 

Detroit House of Correction 13 

Discharged 129 

Failed to appear 4 

Gave bail 2 

Held to Circuit Court 47 

Held to Probate Court i 

Industrial Home for Girls, Adrian 6 

Industrial School for Boys, Lansing 4 

Ordered to leave city I 

Paid fine 123 

Pending 14 

Released by police 68 

Turned over to outside officers 39 

Taken to hospital i 

Sentence suspended 612 

Total 1260 



The Medical Profession. 

Build to-day, then strong and sure. 

With a firm and ample base; 
And ascending and secure 

Shall to-morrow find its place. 

Thus alone can we attain 
To those turrets, where the eye 

Sees the world as one vast plain. 
And one boundless reach of sky. 

— Loiigfcllotv. 



Time was, when the practice of medicine 
hardly rose to the dignity of a profession. The 
then practitioner, who was the best guesser, let 
out the most blood and had the largest assort- 
ment of recipes was a sort of magician and was 
never without patients. The discovery of im- 
portant scientific truths during the last century 
swept away many of the superstitions and pre- 
tentions of the practice and schools of medicine 
and elevated the profession to one of dignity and 
Tecognized honor in the realm of enlightened 
civilization. The success that has attended the 
medical profession during the last half century 



is due to the self-sacrifice and unselfish devo- 
tion of those who have chosen the saving of life 
and the alleviation of physical suffering as a 
life duty, and yet the measure of success has 
been far less in perhaps the generality of in- 
stances than the efforts of those engaged in the 
practice of medicine deserve. 

War marks with a blare of trumpets the 
gallant act and decorates with emblems of a 
nation's esteem the hero who risks life for his 
country. The ph}-sician who saves life receives 
no such reward, but he is usually content with 
the gratitude of the patient and the conscious- 



262 



HISTORY OF BAY COUXTY 



ness of a duty \vell performed. Yet in war, as 
in peace, the doctor is an ever essential factor 
and risks his hfe and health in the camp, on the 
battle-field and in the hospitals of pain. He is 
a comforter of the sick and afflicted, as well as 
the hope of the hearts of the families of the 
sufferer, and if his fame is less pretentious it 
is none the less appreciated. 

We find in the opening j-ears of this 20th 
century no more honored profession that that 
of medicine. In its practice comparatively few, 
however, have been rewarded with rich returns, 
and there are many in this profession, who have 
not met with the same measure of success finan- 
cially that comes to those engaged in other 
business or professional pursuits. 

This was particularly true of the first prac- 
titioners, regulars and volunteers, who sought 
to heal and to help ailing mankind in the wilds 
of Central Michigan. Jacob Graverot, the pict- 
uresque frontiersman of early times in this 
neck of the primeval forest, attained much of 
his fame and eminence among the Indians by 
his primitive but apparently effective treatment 
ment of the natives when ill or wounded. His 
limited knowledge of medicine, particularly the 
curative qualities of herbs and shrubs, made 
him a medicine man among the roaming Chip- 
pewas. The first settlers in these parts for 
years after his death., which occurred about 
1839, heard the red men recount his miraculous 
cures of members of their tribes, long before 
another pale face medicine man visited the 
banks of the Saginaw. 

Here, as elsewhere, the hardy pioneers, who 
first left the borders of civilization and wan 
dered into the little clearing where Bay City 
stands to-day, were like the conquerors of old, 
who burned their ships behind them, and risked 
everything, even health and life, in the un- 
known and isolated settlement. The bayous 
and swampy lowlands were veritable malaria 



breeders, yet Judge Albert Miller in his me- 
moirs recalls the fact that the men and women 
who first came to these parts were a hardy race, 
and sickness was a rare occurrence. Home rem- 
edies, such as were found in every home in the 
land 70 years ago, were never missing from the 
crude shelves of the log cabins of the settlers. 
In extreme and rare cases, some practicing phy- 
sician would be brought from Saginaw, Flint 
and even Detroit. 

Mrs. Elizabeth (Wilcox) Rogers, wife of 
Thomas Rogers and daughter of Dr. Wilcox, 
of \Vatertown, Xew York, who came here 
about 1837, was for years the "Good Samari- 
tan" of the pioneer settlement. Born Novem- 
ber 12, 1809, she spent much of her youth in 
the office of her father, and early learned to> 
compound medicines and fill prescriptions. She 
was an ardent student of medicine, and when 
18 years of age was often consulted by her 
father on various and difficult cases that oc- 
curred in his daily practice. After marrying" 
Mr. Rogers, they came West by way of To- 
ronto, Canada. Judge Miller hired Isir. Rogers- 
as blacksmith and millwright to assist in estab- 
lishing the first sawmill in what is now Bay- 
City, and he filled a multiplicity of minor pub- 
lic positions during those early days. He was 
constable, then mail carrier between here and 
Saginaw, and justice of the peace for a number 
of years. Thus the husband tied the nuptial 
knot of the first couple married here, — Fred 
Derr and Miss Clark^ the school teacher of the 
little settlement. And it was his good wife 
who was present when Elizabeth Barney, 
and later wife of A. G. Sinclair, was born in- 
i\Iay, 1838, in the little log cabin, where the 
Maxwell Block stands to-day, — the first white- 
daughter of iSIr. and Mrs. Cromwell Barney, 
child born in Bay County. From that time- 
forth until 1850, Mrs. Rogers was the minister- 
ine ans:el of the backwoods settlement. The 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



263 



early settlers never forgot her many acts of 
benevolence and her womanly devotion to the 
sick and dying, in days that tried men's souls. 
At all hours of the day or night, through storm 
or snow, rain or shine, on foot or on horseback, 
she would hasten through the woods, infested 
with wild beasts, to the bedside of the sick or 
dying. There w-as scarcely a child born in the 
settlement for 20 years that she was not pres- 
ent, even after practicing physicians came to 
the growing lumber town. And all this she did 
because she felt it was a duty she owed her 
fellow-men, without remuneration, happy if her 
humble efforts relieved the suffering and 
cheered the dying. And during all these years 
she was raising a family of her own, four boys 
and three girls remaining with her, when Mr. 
Rogers was stricken with the cholera, (lur- 
ing the epidemic in the summer of 1852, 
while cutting prairie hay a few miles south 
of his home. He was found by Orrin 
Kinney, and tenderly carried hoine in a 
blanket, but died in a very few hours de- 
spite all his devoted wife could do. Her 
daughters all married men of local promi- 
nence: Esther became Airs. Riley M. Burring- 
ton; Bettie became Mrs. Charles B. Cottrell, 
and Ellen became the wife of the late Prof. 
Fred W". Lankenau, for years superintendent 
of the West Side schools. Mrs. Rogers of 
blessed memory died July 16, 1881. She lived 
to see the four families that were here when she 
first came, multiply and grow to a prosperous 
city of 20,000 souls. 

Dr. J. T. Aliller of Saginaw occasionally 
came down to the forlorn little settlement, while 
Dr. George E. Smith was the first practicing 
physician and registered pharmacist to lo- 
cate in Bay City. He graduated from the 
Cleveland Medical College, began practice 
here in 1850, owned the first drug store 
and was postmaster from 1853 to 1861. 



In 1 86 1 he turned his attention to the lumber 
industry, where he realized quicker returns, 
until 1878, ivhen his health failed him, and 
he again took up the practice of medicine. 
He was a highly respected citizen. Dr. August 
Nabert, born January 10, 1828, in Brunswick, 
Germany, graduated from the medical college 
of his native city, sailed for three years on a 
whaling vessel in the South Seas, came here 
to practice in 1851, and himself fell a victim 
to the cholera epidemic of 1852. A widow and 
five children survived him, including August 
Nabert, now in the upholstering business on 
Fourth avenue. He, too, fell at the post of 
duty, in the service of humanity, yet no medal 
was struck in his honor, nor did a grateful com- 
munity enscribe his name on the tablets of 
fame ! 

The pioneer physicians had to undergo all 
the privations and hardships of the settlement. 
Dr. Smith, and the other practitioners who 
came prior to 1865, had to be as expert in a 
canoe as on horseback, and they had to know 
the Indian trails as well and better than the set- 
tlers, because, forsooth, the settler need know 
only his own vicinity, while the physician must 
know them all ! It was nothing unusual for Dr. 
Smith to follow the "blazed" trail to Wiliams 
township, where the '"C. C. C." of Mr. Chilson, 
and an irregular path through the dense forest, 
alone showed the way. In spring and fall it 
was not practical to travel this trail with a 
horse, which would flounder around helplessly 
in the quagmire, and a stout .stick and huge 
rubber boots were the physician's only aids in 
reaching a rural patient during those seasons. 
Often these calls would come in the middle of 
the night, and a pine torch, and later a lantern, 
would be carried by the guide to the home of 
the sufferer. Whenever practicable, the omni- 
present bark canoe of the Indians would be 
called into requisition as the readiest mode of 



>64 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



transportation to the patients along the Sagi- 
naw and Kawkawlin and their tributaries. Any 
one who has ever navigated one of these craft 
will appreciate the skill required to handle 
them, and the danger inseparable from trips 
along the bay shore to the Kawkawlin or Ouan- 
nicassee in so frail a craft. Calls from Frank- 
enlust, Hampton and Portsmouth townships 
always meant a long trip over corduroy roads 
or no roads at all. 

Since drug stores were scarce, it behooved 
the pioneer physician to carry a small sized 
pharmacy with him, and thus burdened he 
would have to ride a horse of sure foot but try- 
ing gait to the scattered cabins, where often 
dire want and privation were the effective aux- 
iliaries of disease and death. 

That fees were meagre and often paid in 
farm supplies rather than cash, is not surpris- 
ing under the circumstances. But ungrateful- 
ness and debt dodging were seldom heard of in 
this settlement. Dr. Elizabeth (Wilcox) Rog- 
ers declared all our first settlers to be "noble- 
hearted men and women, whom it would seem 
God had selected to make the beginning here, 
which otherwise would never have been done!" 
And the same pioneers adored her "because 
she was as brave as a lioness in the face of 
danger, and when her sympathies were called 
into action, she was as tender as a child !"' This 
mutual high estimate of character speaks vol- 
umes for the integrity and kindness of heart of 
our pioneers. 

From 1S55 to 1865 the Indians added start- 
ling experiences to the daily life and practice 
of the few physicians, who risked health and 
fortune in this settlement. Seldom did these 
red men visit Bay City, but what a general 
carouse ensued, ending usually in a brawl and 
bloodshed. Then the doctor would be sent 
for and, at the risk of meeting the altogether 
too promiscuous blade of the hunting knife, 



would bind up the wounded and maimed, or 
assist at the inquest of the dead. 

Almost as dangerous and exciting was the 
doctor's work in Bay City during the palmy 
days of the lumber industry. Many were the 
free for all fights among the lumber jacks and 
sailors, and the calls for the surgeon's services 
in the tenderloin district were of almost daily 
occurrence. Frequently the surgeon on his 
mission of mercy would arrive before peace 
and quiet had been restored, and while revolver 
shots and beer kegs were still flying promiscu- 
ously about at the hands of burly fellows crazed 
by fire-water and licentiousness. That these 
lurid experiences w^re the exception, and con- 
fined to the harbor district, did not detract from 
the risk taken at some time or other by all 
the physicians who practiced here during those 
stirring times, and many a life, recklessly 
thrown away in these shambles of a frontier 
settlement, was saved by the devoted effort and 
scientific treatment of the doctor who chanced 
to be called first, only too frequently without as 
much as a single word of appreciation, let 
alone remuneration. This was particularly 
true of the roving population who came and 
went like a surging tide among this and simi- 
lar lumber towns of Michigan in the decade 
from 1 870 to 1 880. 

From that time on the population assumed 
a more staid and reliable character. Working- 
men came to make homes and take up land, and 
the rough and read rambler followed the 
frontier as it was pushed steadily westward 
and northward. And just as the population 
became more stationary, even so the professions 
became more numerous and progressive. Emi- 
nent surgeons who had served through the 
bloody campaigns of the Civil Vv'ar continued 
the practice of their profession amid more 
peaceful and more promising surroundings in 
Bay City, then just entering on its period of 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



26s 



unprecedented growth and development. 
Young students who had left the high school 
and university, risking their life no less than 
their profession, in defense of their country, 
flocked from the battle-fields back to school and 
later went from college and university halls to 
the wider fields of life and practice. 

Great discoveries were being made about 
this time in every field of endeavor. Railroads 
were connecting all parts of the country, steam- 
boats connecting the most distant portions of 
the globe, and the electric spark was provid- 
ing a sure and ready means for an interchange 
of knowledge and experience, unknown in pre- 
ceding ages. The medical profession was one 
of the chief beneficiaries of these modern inven- 
tions, just as in the profession itself rapid 
strides were made in scientific knowledge and 
practical application. 

Thus early the concentration and combina- 
tion of kindred interests were being appreciated 
and carried out in an humble way, humljle we 
say, when compared to the giant combinations 
of capital, of labor and even of the professions 
in these opening years of the 20th century. 
The origin of medical associations sprang from 
the same desire for mutual benefit and protec- 
tion that has characterized other pursuits, with 
this marked distinction however, that the peo- 
ple at large truly share in the benefits derived 
from this concerted study and effort of the 
medical profession. 

\\ onders have l^een acomplished in medi- 
cine and surgery in the last 40 years, and who 
can say how much of this advancement, so 
precious to mankind, has been brought about 
by the concerted effort and concentrated study 
and investigation of the medical profession the 
world over? Yet the benefits to be derived 
from collective effort required years of practi- 
cal demonstration, before even here the dawn 
of a new era pierced the antiquated customs of 



other and darker days ! As these benefits be- 
came more apparent, the question of education 
upon lines of the greatest advantage to all be- 
came recognized, and the organization of socie- 
ties, which have for their basic principle the in- 
terchange of ideas that benefit the members 
mutually, soon followed. The development of 
medical science and the requirements of civili- 
zation have created conditions that call for all 
that is brightest and best in our professional 
life, and the medical society ocupies a position 
of recognized utility in human endeavor and 
an honored position among the educational as- 
sociations of the world. The benefits it confers 
on its members are invaluable. It has enabled 
the profession to purge itself in a large meas- 
ure of quacks and ignorant pretenders, "fakers'' 
more properly designated, and to protect the 
public as well as itself from the wolves that 
have preyed upon the credulity of the masses. 
Since Bay County from its earliest days 
possessed able and devoted practitioners, it fol- 
lowed as a matter of course that the bright 
young men then largely comprising the profes- 
sion here should early take a most advanced 
stand on so vital a proposition. Hence the Bay 
County Medical Society as early as 1865 began, 
in an informal way, its period of usefulness. 
But not until about 1873 ^^-'^^ a permanent 
organization perfected^ and even this suffered 
an interval when this promising field lay dor- 
mant. The late Dr. Horace Tupper was the 
first president of the Bay County Medical So- 
ciety, and Dr. Robert W. Erwin, one of the 
deans of the profession locally, who in 1905 
is still enjoying a lucrative practice, and who 
l)ut two short years ago was the vigorous pres- 
ident of the Board of Health, was its first secre- 
tary. Dr. Tupper was one of Bay County's pio- 
neer physicians, and one of the most widely 
known practitioners in Michigan, his services 
being required all over this part of the State. 



-266 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Tlie Bay County Aledical Society in 1905 
holds regular meetings, and from a small be- 
ginning now includes the larger number of the 
members of the profession in Bay Count}'. It 
has been an agency of value to the city and 
county, as well as to the individual members. 
The subjects that form topics for consideration 
are such as appeal to the advanced medical 
practitioner, including surgery in its various 
branches, and the best methods of combatting 
maladies that affect human life. It has been of 
inestimable advantage to the profession in the 
valley and is strong', vigorous and alive to 
every onward movement in medical science. 
It represents the finest equipped physicians and 
surgeons in this county, and there are no abler 
practitioners to be found anywhere. 

As a relaxation from the arduous labors of 
the profession, the members of the society are 
accustomed to gather occasionally at a physi- 
cians' banquet, where the best of good-fellow- 
ship reigns. Even here it is their chief delight 
to discuss learned matters and from the lips 
of a leader in their chosen profession acquire 
more knowledge and the benefit of ripe experi- 
ence and minute research. Their predecessors 
in the line of duty 30 years ago did not have 
these advantages. Preeminent leaders there 
were, then as now, but the same means of travel 
and intercourse were so restricted that able 
treatises in the medical journals alone could 
convey to the profession in the rural districts 
the benefits of new ideas, new formulas and 
new methods. 

The present officers of the society are : Dr. 
Russel W. Brown, president ; Dr. Archibald W. 
Herrick, secretary; Dr. Charles H. Baker, 
treasurer. It would be impossible to give in 
this connection a list of the membership of the 
society in all these years since its organization, 
-but among those who have been prominent are 
the well-known and still active practitioners, 



the deans of the profession locally, — Dr. Henry 
B. Land(-)n, Dr. Robert W. Erwin, Dr. Isaac 
E. Randall, Dr. Charles T. Newkirk and Dr. 
John W. Hauxhurst, while the necrology of 
the society contains such honored names as 
Dr. Horace Tupper, Dr. Columbus V. Tyler, 
Dr. Jeffrey R. Thomas, Dr. R. W. Elliott, and 
Dr. A. E. Hagadorn, able and beloved practi- 
tioners, whose names will live long in the hearts 
of those they served so well in life, many of 
whom owe their very lives to timely and expe- 
rienced medical aid in times of need ! 

\\'hile we are decidedly in the age of the $ 
mark, when almost everything and everybody 
is measured by the monetary standard, and 
when there are occasionally people who feel 
that anything they pay for in hard cash re- 
cjuires no further comment or concern, to the 
great majority the devoted care of the family 
physician cannot and will not be measured by 
that Iciw standard. Life and health are price- 
less gifts, and those who serve humanity in the 
consideration of those gifts merit a reward that 
goes beyond the grave and that cannot be com- 
puted in mere dollars and cents_, be the com- 
putation ever so liberal. Verily the able and de- 
voted physician is indeed a benefactor of man- 
kind ! 

Bay County has reason to appreciate the 
ability, character and services of its medical 
practitioners ! If every community in our good 
State and great country is as al.ily served, then 
can we well understand and believe that the 
nation's mortality statistics are becoming year- 
ly more encouraging, and the average span of 
life, despite our strenuosity. is gradually and 
steadily being prolonged. The advance in sur- 
gery and medicine is one of the great marvels 
of this enlightened age, and progress and re- 
sults are constant and well-defined on this vital 
field of human endeavor. We need but look 
about us and take but a fleeting glance at com- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



267 



parative statistics of health and mortahty right 
here at home during the past 30 years, to appre- 
ciate the benefits conferred by the earnest study 
and advanced methods used by our own es- 
teemed guardians of hfe and heaUh. 

There is no organization of citizens which 
has for its objects the welfare of the community 
and advancement of its members that has been 
productive of a greater measure of general 
good than the Bay County Medical Society. 
It deserves the highest meed of praise and its 
members are among our most esteemed citi- 
zens. From its ranks have come some of the 
ablest instructors in our country's leading 
schools of medicine. Dr. Fleming Carrow, the 
noted oculist, who was for some time in prac- 
tice in Bay County, was for many years profes- 
sor at the University of Michigan, the special- 
ist on diseases of the eye and ear. He was en- 
joying a lucrative practice extending all over 
the State, when the call came to accept a chair 
in Michigan's far-famed university at Ann 
Arbor. Dr. R. S. Copeland, of the Homeo- 
pathic Medical School at the University of 
Michigan, came to Bay City about the time Dr. 
Carrow was called to Ann Arlxir, and for some 
years also enjoyed a lucrative practice, until 
called to the higher post of duty and honor. 

Bay City has skilled men filling the places 
of those who have been called to larger fields, 
and right well are they maintaining the repu- 
tation of their predecessors. Dr. \\'. \\'. Wil- 
liams and others have this very year, after 
studies abroad, taken up at home the practice 
of electro-therapeutics, and it may be safely 
asserted that in this branch of the profession 
there are none better equipped than those in this 
city. In the field of general practice the society 
is strong and the names and reputations of a 
score or more of these are secure. 

Note the changes in the honor roll of our 
medical profession of 30 years ago and now. 



In 1875 we find practicing here the following 
physicians : Charles A. Bogert, John H. Bur- 
land, William H. Burr, James Clark, Sira Car- 
men, William W. Elmer, John ]\I. Emery, Ste- 
phen • H. Hagadorn, John Hargrave, W^. E. 
Vaughn, who located here in 1868; Norman 
Johnson, Owen Kelley, C. C. Kingsbury, Rich- 
ard Kratzsch, George La^Montagne, Jeremy T. 
Miller, John Oldfield, Patrick \\". O'Toole and 
W. R. Tupper, practitioners long since van- 
ished fr(im the scene of their activities, whether 
by death or removal. Among the active list of 
30 years ago, but whom the Grim Reaper has 
since gathered to the majority, we find the late 
Dr. William Cunningham, Sr., Dr. Edwin H. 
Gates, who came here in 1866: Dr. A. F. Hag- 
adorn, who came here in 1875; Dr. George 
Heumann, whose thrilling experience in a bliz- 
zard while crossing Saginaw Bay cost him a leg 
and nearly his life, a vivid reminder of the 
dangers constantly attending the devoted min- 
istrations of the first physicians in this frontier 
settlement; Dr. Henry A. Marks, Dr. Aaron A. 
Pratt, Dr. Jefifrey R. Thomas, Dr. Horace 
Tupper, Dr. Columbus V. Tyler who came here 
in 1869; and Mrs. ]\Iarion F. Ma.xon, the lone 
woman physician 30 years ago, with offices in 
the Griswold Block, were all beloved and es- 
teemed practitioners, whose memories are treas- 
ured by the thousands they served so well, and 
whose fame as leaders in the various branches 
of the profession locally will endure for genera- 
tions yet to come. 

To few men in any walk of life is it given 
to be able to look on 30 years of consecutive 
service in one community, and in this distin- 
guished list we find on active duty in 1875, and 
some much earlier; Dr. Rol)ert W. Erwin, then 
located on Fifth avenue and Adams streets; 
Dr. Harvey Gilbert, then in the Cranage Block 
and in 1903-04 the energetic health officer, 
combatting a mild, local epidemic of smallpox, 



268 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and incidentally carrying forward the campaign 
for more effective work in the secretary's de- 
partment of the State Board of Health; Dr. 
Henry B. Landon, our esteemed veteran soldier 
and physician, the first of the still living and 
practicing physicians to come here, who can 
now look back upon 40 years of almost con- 
tinuous service among the good people of Bay 
County, and who in 1875 ^^^'^^ offices on Fifth 
avenue and Jefferson street; Dr. Charles T. 
Newkirk, the globetrotter and veteran army 
surgeon, whose medical experience extends 
over three continents, who in 1862, hardly of 
age and just graduated from Victoria College 
at Toronto, joined his brother in the Argentine 
Republic, in South America, later lost his 
brother, Dr. Daniel Newkirk, in a smallpox 
epidemic, served three years as surgeon in the 
army of Brazil in Paraguay, with the rank of 
captain, then four months in a yellow fever 
epidemic in Buenos Ayres, and, after visiting 
the leading hospitals of London and Continen- 
tal Europe, located permanently in Bay City in 
1868. In 1875 we find him located at No. 305 
Nordi Water street, where to-day stand the 
mammoth storage tanks of the gas company. 
In 1898 the writer had reason to see and appre- 
ciate the work of Dr. Newkirk, then major and 
surgeon in the United States Army, serving 
before Santiago, amid the hospitals of the 
wounded and dying at Siboney, and the fever 
wards near Aquadores. In 1905 Dr. Newkirk 
is still serving his State as surgeon, with the 
rank of captain of the 3rd Infantry, Michigan 
National Guard. Dr. Charles A. Walsh was 
located in the Cranage Block in 1875, and for 
more than thirty years Bay City has admired 
and appreciated his professional services, his 
good citizenship, which ever finds time and 
energv from his other duties for public-spirited 
endeavors. Dr. George A. Williams had head- 
quarters in Whitney's drug-store in 1875, and 



thirtv years after still enjoys good health, his 
share of the county's practice, and the reputa- 
tion of being a capital entertainer and a pro- 
ficient linguist. Dr. \A'illiam F. Hovey, Civil 
War ^■eteran, was in 1875, practicing on South 
Water street, but of late years he has retired 
for a well-earned repose from the exacting du- 
ties of his profession. He lives with his daugh- 
ter, Mrs. H. C. Clements, on Center avenue, 
but still takes an active interest in public affairs 
of his ward, city, county and State. Bay City, 
West Side, has in 1905 no more popular and 
representative a citizen than Dr. Isaac E. Ran- 
dall, who began his professional career there in 
1867, and practically grew up with that com- 
munity. In 1875 we already find him in the lo- 
cation on John and River streets, where he is 
in 1905, the beloved family medical adviser in 
hundreds of Bay County homes, pension ex- 
aminer and public-spirited citizen, who contrib- 
uted much tOAvard the union of our municipali- 
ties. Dr. William E. Magill came to Denona 
in 1870. was practicing in 1875 on Henry street 
between John and Jane streets, and soon there- 
after began active public life and service, which 
kept him much from his professional duties. 
For five years he was superintendent of the 
West Bay City schools ; mayor, 1881-82, county 
treasurer six years ; insurance commissioner for 
Michigan 1891-93, since which time he has held 
sundry other local offices, being the last city 
treasurer of West Bay City, going out of office 
upon the consolidation of the sister cities in 
April, 1905. There is in all Bay County no 
better illustration of loyal friendship and un- 
swerving devotion, the local illustration of the 
far-famed story of Damon and Pythias, than 
the thirty-five years of companionship of Hon. 
H. H. Aplin and Dr. William E. Magill, a 
friendship that has exerted a marked influence 
on the course of local and public events in that 
long period, unhampered by opposing political 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



269 



beliefs, Dr. Magill being for years as ardent a 
Democrat as his friend was a stanch Repub- 
Hcan. Both are still in active service, united 
now politically, since the money issue changed 
party demarcation and their fellow-citizens wish 
them many more years of usefulness and happy 
comradeship. Dr. John W. Hauxhurst in 1875 
was located on Midland street between River 
and Linn streets, then as now, the heart of the 
West Side, and in 1905 we find this eminent 
physician still enjoying the confidence and es- 
teem of a wide circle of acquamtances, with his 
professional services in much demand. Dr. 
Henry Wiede, practicing in Salzburg in 1875, 
has vanished from this vicinity. Dr. Fred D. 
Hiesordt has the unique distinction of being the 
oldest native-born practitioner. Born in Bay 
City in 1858, lie graduated from the Bay City 
High School in 1876, the University of Mich- 
igan in 1879, ^"tl the Detroit Medical College 
in 1 88 1. He came here immediately to prac- 
tice, and in an unostentatious way has followed 
his chosen profession here since, living with his 
father, P. S. Hiesordt, who taught the first 
graded school in Bay City. Dr. Columbus V. 
Tyler was one of the most conspicuous figures 
in Bay County's medical profession. Born in 
1825, he came here in 1869, was elected State 
Senator for the term from 1876 to 1879, and 
served on the State Board of Health. He was 
a prominent member of the Bay County Med- 
ical Society and of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation. 

In 1905 we find Bay City well supplied with 
hospitals and sanitariums, yet only five years 
ago there was not in all Bay County a single 
emergency institution. In 1880 Dr. J. A. Water- 
house, graduated of the Eclectic Medical Insti- 
tute at Cincinnati, Ohio, came here to estab- 
lish the Bay City Hospital, occupying four 
rooms in the Smith & Hart Block on Water 
street; the year following he engaged thirty 

15 



rooms at Third and Saginaw streets, called in 
his brother. Dr. H. M. Waterhouse, a skilled 
surgeon, and for several years treated thous- 
ands of patients. This and similar institutions 
started later thrived for a while and then van- 
ished. In 1900 Mercy Hospital was founded 
through the self-denying and persistent efforts 
of the good Sisters of jMercy, ably assisted by 
the medical profession and many of the laity. 
This institution has been successful from its 
very inception, as well as a boon to suffering 
humanity. Since then the Lewis Hospital on 
Broadway, Bishop Hospital on Center avenue, 
and several private sanitariums have been es- 
tablished, so that in this particular Bay County 
is now well equipped and has in fact ample hos- 
pital facilities for all the surrounding region, 
whose people gladly avail themselves of the 
splendid corps of local practitioners and modern 
hospital accommodations. In surgery Bay City 
stands pre-eminent in the State, a large corps 
of capable and experienced surgeons enjoying; 
extended and constantly increasing practice. 

The following mortality statistics gleaned 
from the Federal census of 1900, will be of in- 
terest to the medical profession, no less than to 
the laity. During the census year there were 547 
deaths in Greater Bay City, 351 on the East 
Side, and 196 on the West Side. Of these, 
348 were native born and 191 foreign born. 
Let it be recalled here that this same census 
shows Bay City, East Side, to have had in that 
year 13,546 males, and 14,082 females; 27,485 
whites, and 143 colored, of whom 19.143 were 
native born, and 8,485 foreign born. The for- 
eign born amounted to 30.7 per cent, of the 
whole. Now we have always been told that the 
hardy foreigners are far stronger physically 
than the pie-eating Yankees, but for Bay City 
the statistics tell a different tale. The total 
death rate per 1,000 of population in Bay City, 
East Side, was 12.7 per cent.; the deadi rate 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



of the native born was i i.S per cent., -while that 
of the foreign born was 14.9 per cent. On the 
West Side the total death rate was 14.9 per 
cent per i ,000 population ; the death rate of 
the nati\'e born was 13.8 per cent., while that of 
the foreign born was 17.8 per cent. The age 
periods of the deaths on the East Side were as 
follows : Under one year, 72 ; under five years, 
108; five to 14 years, 25; 15 to 24 years, 30; 
25 to 34 years, 2-j\ 35 to 44 years, 25; 45 to 
■64 years, 68 ; 65 years and over, 68. On West 
Side the age period of the deaths were as fol- 
lows : Under one year, 46 ; under five years, 
■67; five to 14 years, 14; 15 to 24 years, 23; 25 
to 34 years, 21 : 35 to 44 years, 14; 45 to 64 
years, 30 ; 65 years and over, 27. 

The principle causes of death on the East 
and West sides, respectively, were as follows : 
Measles. 3 and 4: scarlet fever, 10 and 2; diph- 
theria and croup, 21 and 8; diarrheal diseases, 
13 and 15; typhoid fever, 8 and 6; malarial 
fever, 2 and 3 ; influenza, 3 and i ; pneumonia, 
13 and 14; consumption, 19 and 20 (the first 
number being the deaths on the East Side, the 
last figures the deaths on the West Side). In- 
creased mortality during the last decade is 
shown in pneumonia, 5 per cent ; heart disease, 
12.2 per cent.; kidney diseases, 24 per cent, 
(now used as an argument favoring temper- 
ance!): apoplexy, 17.6 per cent.; cancer, 12. i 
per cent. ; old age, 9.1 per cent (mark that !) in- 
fluenza 17.7 per cent. ; stomach diseases, 1.9 per 
cent.; suicide, 1.5 per cent.; septicemia, 2.3 per 
■cent. ; diabetes, 3.9 per cent. ; burns ami scalds, 
3.3 per cent. ; cerebro-spinal fever, .8 per cent, 
(this disease is causing much illness and death 
in New York and elsewhere in 1905) ; gunshot 
wounds, 1.4 per cent. Encouraging decreases 
in mortality for the same period are shown in 
consumption, 54.9 per cent ; diarrheal diseases, 
19 per cent. ; bronchitis. 26.1 per cent. ; cholera 
infantum, 3 1 .9 per cent. ; debility and atrophy. 



43.1 per cent.; diphtheria, 34.7 per cent; con- 
\ulsions, 23.2 per cent.; brain diseases, 12.3 per 
cent.; croup 17.8 per cent. ; malarial fever, 10.4 
per cent.; rheumatism. 1.3 per cent.; inflamma- 
tion of the brain, "j.^) per cent. ; paralysis, 2.7 
per cent.; liver diseases, 1.5 per cent.; dropsy, 
3.4 per cent. Much of this discrease in our 
most dreaded national ailments is of course due 
to the advances made by the medical profession 
in the last decade, no less than to the more ra- 
tional living of the nation itself. A'erily we do 
progress ! 

In this place it may not be inappropriate to 
note a few of the coordinate branches of the 
schools of medicine. There is the druggist, the 
skilled mixer and compounder, upon whose ex- 
perience and ability often depends so much of 
the physician's success and the weal and woe 
of many patients. William W. \'edder is the 
dean of druggists on the West Side, being the 
first pharmacist to locate there in 1873, '^'^^ ""^ 
1905 he is still dispensing drugs to his appre- 
ciative neighbors. On the East Side, John K. 
Mason is the dean, beginning under the firm 
name of Mason & McNeil in 1874, taking in 
Lyman F. Beach in 1879, the firm of Alason & 
Beach continuing to this daj- among the leaders 
in the drug line in Northern Michigan. Lucien 
S. Coman was located at No. 107 Center ave- 
nue in 1875, later going to the corner of Center 
and W'ashington aveues, where he continued in 
business almost up to the hour of his death. 
Florentine H. J. \'anEmster was located on 
Broadway and i8th street in 1875; later he 
erected the fine block at the head of Washing- 
ton avenue, which bears this name. Mr. Van 
Emster met a tragic death a few years ago 
through the burning of his drug store, three 
lives being lost in the conflagration. Frederick 
Von Walthousen was in 1875 located on Third 
and Water streets ; later he removed to Center 
avenue and Adams street, and in 1905 is still 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



271 



among the living, but bent under the weight of 
75 winters and many misfortunes. C. C. Whit- 
ney in 1875 ^■'^'i ^ drug store in the Bank Block, 
but in 1905 we find him in the National Chic- 
ory Company and the National Biscuit Com- 
pany, while others are carrying on his former 
business. There were twelve other drug stores 
in 1875 o" '^'16 East Side, and two others on the 
West Side, so the growing city, then as now, 
was well supplied in that line. 

Less numerous but equally welcome were 
the dentists. Dr. Hezekiah B. Hulbert came 
here in 1868, and in 1875 "^^'^^ located in the 
Cranage Block, while in 1905 the sage prac- 
titioner is located in the Ridotto. Dr. Carl W. 
Maxon, in 1905 practicing on the West Side, 
came here in 1866, was located in the Westover 
Block in 1875 ^'""^^ ^''^s long enjoyed his share 
of the dental business. The late Dr. N. H. 
Webster came here in 1866, was located in the 
Shearer Block in 1875, and continued actively 
at work for nearly 30 years. His widow still 
lives in their commodious home on State street, 
in its day one of the finest homes on the W^est 
Side. As late as 1S75 the West Side had no 
dentists, but in 1905 this field is also well taken 
care of. Most of the practitioners in dentistry 
in Bay City, East and West Side, in 1905, are 
recent graduates from the University of Mich- 
igan and similar institutions, which are today 
furnishing the world with the most advanced 
practitioners in that field of endeavor. They 
are a boon to our sweet-tooth generation, with 
its manifold needs for dentistry in a degree un- 
known by our forefathers. They are progres- 
sive citizens withal and with the medical pro- 
fession take a foremost place in our social, pub- 
lic and civil life. Their long years of study 



and preparation, no less than their close appli- 
cation to their chosen profession, merit unlimit- 
ed success. 

As early as the 17th century, Frederick von 
Logau made this aphorism a by-word in his 
nation : 

The best medicines that I would propose, 

Are Joy and Temperance and Repose, 

For they slam the door on the doctor's nose ! 

As a nation we have still much to learn on 
that score, and our practitioners would find it 
less difficult to save human life, were life not 
held too cheaply by many people. Good health 
is the greatest boon of God, and mankind should 
not fritter it away recklessly, heedlessly, un- 
mindful of the first laws of health and the timely 
warnings of Nature. Medicine and science can- 
not always heal wounds thus recklessly in- 
flicted ! The most progressive physician is still 
but himself human, and far from being omni- 
potent. His efforts to prolong and to save life 
require the constant and earnest co-operation of 
our people. Temperate living will do much to 
alleviate the sum of human suffering and in- 
crease the sum of human happiness. That is 
the life work and the life ambition of each suc- 
cessful physician, never so happy as when this 
ideal has been reached in even a remote degree 
and even in an isolated instance. And a grate- 
ful and appreciative people extend to the pro- 
fession that high plane in life, to which their 
devoted work for weak and suffering humanity 
justly entitles them. 

Each lonely place shall him restore, 
For him the tear be duly shed; 
Beloved, tilllife can charm no more. 
And mourned till gratitude be dead! 

— Irving. 



CHAPTER XII. 



Churches^ Religious Societies^ Hospitals and Charities. 



METHODIST CHURCHES. 

According to the late Judge Albert ^liller, 
the first church that was built in the Saginaw- 
Valley and dedicated to the worship of God 
was the Methodist Mission Church at Kawkaw- 
lin, which was presided over by Rev. Mr. 
Brown. 

]\Iadison Avenue Methodist Episcopal 
Church. — At that time there were a few famil- 
ies living in Lower Saginaw, as Bay City was 
tlien called, who had so far advanced in civili- 
zation as to build a small school house about 20 
feet square, which stood near the corner of 
First street and Washington avenue. Here Rev. 
j\Ir. Brown preached occasionally, when the 
people at Portsmouth had the privilege of at- 
tending religious worship by walking two or 
three miles over a rough road. Mrs. Belinda 
Barney, Mr. and Mrs. Raby and J. Crutchfield 
organized the first ^lethodist class in Bay City 
in 1837. Meetings were held from time to 
time by the various Methodist preachers who 
rode this circuit until 1852 when Rev. George 
Bradley was assigned to the pastorate by the 
annual conference held at Niles. During his 
ministry in 1852-53 the society was fully or- 
ganized and a church edifice erected on Wash- 
ington avenue: here the church worshiped un- 
til its present beautiful home on the corner of 
Madison avenue and Ninth street was com- 



pleted. It was built in 1885 at a cost of $50,- 
000, and about ten years later the parsonage 
adjoining the church on Ninth street was erected 
at a cost of $8,000. On September 5, 1859, 
William Benson recorded in the county clerk's 
office the appointment of Calvin C. C. Chilson, 
Henry M. Bradley, Henry M. Stillman, John J. 
Nichols and A. G. Sinclair, trustees in trust for 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. This is the 
first board of trustees, of which there is offi- 
cial record. The present officers of the Madi- 
son A\'enue Methodist Episcopal are as fol- 
lows : Presiding elder, Rev. W. 'SI. Ward; 
pastor. Rev. G. E. Ackerman ; resident min- 
ister. Rev. E. T. Lumber: trustees, — Benja- 
min Boutell, Dr. Robert W. Erwin, Charles AL 
Hart, Cyrus Hiller, W. H. Nickless, E. T. 
Rowley, L. R. Russell, C. E. Walker and A. 
J. Woolfitt; secretary of the official board, D. 
O. Smith : treasurer, W. H. Nickless. The 
church now has a membership of about 500. 

German Methodist Episcopal Church. 
— This church dates back to 1857 when Rev. 
Jacob Krehbil visited Lower Saginaw and held 
religious services. In 1858 he was succeeded 
by Rev. John Horst and his colleague. Rev. 
John Braun, who continued their labors until 
the close of 1859. Various other pastors fol- 
lowed and the society grew in numbers and in 
strength, and about 1867 a church edifice was 
erected on Adams street between Eighth and 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



273 



Ninth streets. Here they continued to worship 
until about i8§3, when their present edifice 
at the corner of South VanBuren and 13th 
streets was completed. In 1894 a cellar was 
built under the church and furnaces installed. 
There is also a comfortable parsonage built ad- 
joining the church. The present membership 
is about 135. Rev. John Kuster is the present 
pastor. 

Fremont Avenue Methodist Episcopal 
Church. — During 1853-54 the second settled 
pastor of the Madison Avenue Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, Rev. Israel Cogshall, used to 
hold occasional services in Portsmouth. In 
1864 this cliurch was organized and the fol- 
lowing year, under the superintendence of Rev. 
William Fox, a church edifice was erected, on 
the site wdiere the present church stands, and 
dedicated. This building was destroyed in the, 
devastating fire that swept South Bay City 
some years ago. The society immediately com- 
menced the erection of their present structure, 
and began to hold services in the basement the 
same year (1892). It took about two years to 
complete the building, which cost about $15,- 
000; of this amount only about $1,500 remains 
to be paid. Rev. \\'. W. Will, who is now 
pastor of the church, came here in 1900. The 
church, which has about 120 members, is active 
in Christian work. 

WooDsiDE Avenue Methodist Episcop.^l 
Church. — This church was organized in 1873 
to accommodate members of this denomination 
who resided in the north part of Bay City. The 
church edifice was erected in 1876, during the 
pastorate of Rev. A. B. Clough, which extended 
from 1874 to 1877. He was followed by Rev. 
Calvin Gibbs. who remained with the church 
two years, During the next eight years there 
was a change in pastors every year, the minis- 
ters coming in the following order : Revs. 
Diverty, Spriggs, Lambly, Bancroft, Persons. 



Weir, William Pope, D. E. Birtch. The next 
pastor. Rev. P. J. Wright, served two years, 
and his successor. Rev. A. J. Richards, one 
year. Rev. John A. Rowe remained with tlie 
church four years, and during his pastorate the 
parsonage was built, at a cost of $3,200. The 
next pastors were Revs. Judson Cooper. J. B. 
McGee and ^Villiam Edmunds, who served 
three, two and three years, respectively. The 
next pastor was Rev. L. H. Stevens, who came 
to the church in 1904 and still serves the church. 
They have a present membership of 100, and 
e\-ery department of the church work is well 
organized. 

Central Methodist Episcopal Church. 
— In the spring of 1887 members of the Mad; 
ison Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church 
started a mission Sunday-school in the South 
End of the city. They met at various places 
and held preaching services and prayer meet- 
ings in addition to the sessions of the Sunday- 
school. The work flourished, and in 1893 the 
Detroit Conference appointed Rev. A. J. Rich- 
ards to serve this church, together with the 
Woodside Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church 
for one year. He was followed by Rev. J. A. 
Rowe, who also served both churches. He was 
succeeded in September, 1895, by Rev. O. W. 
Willets, who remained with the church one 
year. During his pastorate the church Ijecame 
an independent body, and has been self-sup- 
porting since that time. In September, 1896, 
Rev. George John Piper became pastor, and 
served the church one year. He was succeeded 
by Rev. Erwin King in 1898, whose pastorate 
covered a period of three years. In September, 
1901, Rev. W. H. Gray became pastor. In the 
following September. Rev. Otto L. Dreys was 
appointed to this charge, and continued until 
September, 1903, when the present pastor. Rev. 
B. C. Moore, took up his duties. 

In 1 89 1 the land on which the church stands 



274 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



was purchased. A boarding house was stand- 
ing on this lot at the time. This was remodeled 
and used for a place of meeting for two years. 
In 1893 their present house of worship was 
erected at a cost of $3,000. It will seat about 
300 people. Ten years later the present parson- 
age was built on 19th street in the rear of the 
church, which faces on Fraser street. The par- 
sonage is valued at over $1,000. The present 
membership of the church is 125, and there 
are enrolled in the Sunday-school 140 pupils. 
The society was incorporated j\Iay 13, 1902. 

Thoburn Methodist Episcopal Church 
(West Side). — This church, which has also 
gone by the names of "Banks" and "Fourth 
Avenue," is the oldest church on the West Side. 
J. S. Taylor, who later became one of the found- 
ers of the First ^Methodist Episcopal Church, 
West Bay City, established the meetings at 
Banks, and was the first superintendent of the 
Sunday-school. The church at first received 
the ministrations of various ]\Iethodist clergy- 
men from the East Side, but when the Wood- 
side Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church was 
established, one pastor was appointed to serve 
both churches, and this arrangement was con- 
tinued until the church at Banks became an in- 
dependent body, excepting while Rev. William 
Da we and Rev. ]\Ir. Davis were pastors of the 
First ^^lethodist Episcopal Church, during 
which time they also served the Banks church. 

When Rev. A. J. Richards' term as presid- 
ing elder came to a close, he was appointed to 
this church. The house of worship, which is 
located at the corner of Transit and Leng 
streets, was erected in 1867, and during the 
pastorate of Rev. Mr. Richards was enlarged 
to its present size. It has ample seating ca- 
pacity for 300 people, and including furnish- 
ings is now valued at $3,200. The present 
parsonage, which is valued at $1,000, was pur- 
chased about nine years ago. 



The following are the pastors who succeed- 
ed Rev. Mr. Richards, and the periods during 
which they served: Rev. E. A. Cross, 1891- 
93 ; Rev. W. H. Allman, 1893-96; Rev. George 
A. Fee, 1896-99; Rev. W. E. Burnett, 1899- 
1901; Rev. H. G. Pearce, 1901-04; and Rev. 
W. E. Brown, the present pastor, who came in 
1904. Including probationers, the church now 
has a membership of 142. There are enrolled 
in the Sunday-school 140 pupils and teachers. 

In 1 90 1 a mission was started by this church 
at Wenona Beach. Every Sunday afternoon 
the pastor of Thoburn IMethodist Episcopal 
church preaches in the school house. 

First Methodist Episcopal Church 
( ^^'est Side). — The history of this church dates 
from the fall of 1866, when the Wenona charge 
was formed and Rev. A. C. Shaw was appoint- 
ed pastor. During his pastorate a house of 
worship was erected and dedicated by Rev. B. 
I. Ives, of New York. In the fall of 1867, Rev. 
Alexander Gee succeeded to the pastorate. 
Prior to 1868 Portsmouth had been included 
in this charge, but in that year the work was di- 
vided, and Rev. Joel B. Goss became the min- 
ister. In August, 1868, the society had to va- 
cate the hall in which they had held their meet- 
ings up to that time, and until November 18, 
services were held at Bangor. Then Babo Hall 
was secured, and the following Sabbath a Sun- 
day-school was organized. About this time the 
society commenced to build a house of worship 
on some lots which had been donated by Mrs. 
Calvin C. C. Chilson, who was also very ener- 
getic in securing subscriptions toward paying 
for the building. Money did not come in very 
rapidly, and it was not until November, 1869, 
that they were able to dedicate their church. In 
September of that year, Rev. Jacob Horton 
was appointed pastor, and during the latter part 
of his pastorate, which covered two years, the 
chapel was built. Rev. W. O. Burnett was 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



-/o 



appointed to the cluirch the following year, and 
remained with the church until the fall of 1874, 
when he was followed by Rev. R. Woodhams, 
who remained until 1876. Rev. D. W. Misner 
was then appointed and was succeeded in the 
fall of 1877, after a pastorate of one year by 
Rev. William Dawe, who remained three years. 
In 1 88 1 the society purchased a house and lot 
adjoining- the church for a parsonage. 

In 1884 the old church was burned, and un- 
til their new church was completed the society 
worshiped in the old Presbyterian Church. The 
construction of the present, fine brick house of 
worship was begun in the fall of that year, and 
the completed edifice was dedicated on June 20, 
1885. The dedication sermon was preached by 
Bishop Bowman. Including furnishings, the 
church cost about $23,000. The seating ca- 
pacity of the main auditorium is about 450, 
and the lecture room, which adjoins, will seat 
200 more persons. These two rooms can be 
thrown into one. The parsonage was begun in 
the fail of 1903 and was completed the follow- 
ing spring at a cost of $3,500. The entire prop- 
erty is free from debt. 

Rev. Matthew C. Hawkes became pastor in 
1883 and remained with the church three years. 
During his term the name of the society was 
changed to that which it now bears. After Rev. 
Mr. Hawkes came Rev. N. G. Lyons, whose 
pastorate extended to 1889. He was succeeded 
by Rev. Charles Morgan, the duration of whose 
pastorate was two years. Rev. James H. Kil- 
patrick came next and remained with the church 
three years. His successor. Rev. C. B. Steele, 
also remained three years. Rev. H. C. Scripps, 
the next pastor, remained but two years. He 
died at Mount Clemens in 1903. He w^as fol- 
lowed by Rev. William B. Pope, whose pas- 
torate covered a period of four years. The 
present pastor, Rev. J. P. Varner, came to the 



church in September, 1904. The church now 
has about 500 members, and the various church 
societies and the Sunday-school are in a flour- 
ishing condition. 

Auburn Methodist Episcopal Church 
(Aviburn).— In 1875 a church building was 
erected here, and until 1892 this was a mis- 
sion church in connection with the church at 
Freeland. In 1892 the church became an inde- 
pendent body, and since that time has had the 
following pastors : Rev. R. Pattinson, 1893- 
94; Rev. W. J. Bailey, 1895-97; Rev. R. L. 
Cope, 1898; Rev. W. E. Edmunds, 1899; Rev. 
J. A. Rowe, 1900; and Rev. A. J. Holmes, the 
present pastor, who took charge in 1901. Dur- 
ing Rev. Mr. Holmes's pastorate the parsonage, 
which was erected under the direction of Rev. 
R. Pattinson, has been remodeled and made 
very commodious. In 1894 a beautiful little 
church was built at North Williams. This is 
included in the circuit with Auburn and is 
served by the same pastor. 

Free Methodist Church. — The church 
of this denomination in Bay City is located at 
the corner of Garfield avenue and Lafayette 
street. It was organized about eighteen years 
ago, and now has about forty members. The 
parsonage is connected with the church in the 
rear. The present pastor, Rev. J. H. McMil- 
lan, came here in the fall of 1903. The society 
belongs to the East Michigan Conference. 

Free Methodist Church (West Side). 
— In August, 1886, the land on Litchfield 
street where the church is now located was pur- 
chased and work on the building was com- 
menced. The property is now valued at $1,000. 
The society owns a parsonage at 301 Spruce 
street, valued at $500. The present pastor. Rev. 
Curtis Lum, came here September 25. 1904. 
The church has now 21 members, and about 
30 pupils are enrolled in the Sunday-school. 



276 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS. 

For the early history of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church in this region we are indebted to an 
article written by John Hyde, editor of the 
Catholic Chronicle, which appeared in 1875, 
and from which the following is quoted: 

"Among those who most frequently came 
here prior to 1848, were Fathers Kundig and 
Louis, and Father Peter Kindekens, the vicar 
general of the diocese. Between 1848 and 1852 
priestly visits became more frequent. Father 
Moynahan, then the pastor of Flint, made fre- 
quent trips to Saginaw City, and on most oc- 
casions would get some good Frenchman or 
Indian to paddle him down the river to Lower 
Saginaw. Occasionally, too, Father Joseph 
Kindekens, brother of the Father Peter above 
mentioned, and Father Kilroy, now pastor of 
Emmett, St, Clair County, would be assigned 
to the duty of visiting the Catholics of the val- 
ley, and would be watched eagerly from the 
shore, as he approached in canoe or on the ice, 
carefully holding the pack containing his altar 
vestments and vessels. La 1848 there were 
eight Catholic families here, most of whom 
were French. By 185 1 the number had in- 
creased to 14, besides a few young unmarried 
men, who had ventured in to help prepare the 
lands for their future wealthy occupants. 
Among the 'old heads' were the Trombleys, 
the Trudells, the Longtains and the Marsacs, 
and among the men of the younger blood there 
were James L. Herbert, the brothers Casson,. 
William Ferris and others. I have said that 
most of the Catholics were Frenchmen, but 
what spot on earth can one look at without find- 
ing there an Lishman? Lower Saginaw at 
that time was no exception. Here too there 
were L-ishmen : Osmond A. Perrott. P. J. Per- 
rott, Bernard Cunningham and James Watson. 

"In 1850-51. the Catholics of Lower Sag- 



inaw considered themselves numerous enough 
to attempt building a church. The munificence 
and forethought of the men who had laid out 
the village plot had provided building sites for 
the diiTerent Christian denomination whose 
members might settle here. The Catholics 
were the first to avail themselves of the bounty, 
and as the most convenient to the settled portion 
of the village, the site of the present St. Jo- 
seph's Church was selected. There were no 
architects here then, but there were many who 
had assisted at every 'raising' that had e\'er 
occurred here, and knew just what a building 
needed to make it last long. The men went into 
the woods to chop and square the timber, and 
each helped to put the pieces in their places in 
the edifice. The men were few, however, none 
of them were rich then (though many of them 
are now) and most of them had to support fam- 
ilies besides building churches. The work con- 
sequently progressed but slowly; so much so 
that when Rev. H. J. H. Schutjes arrived here 
in 1852, not much of a church was to be seen. 
But they had now at least at their head one 
who could encourage and direct them ; and 
after some time, by his efforts and their own 
will, the building gradually assumed shape, and 
Father Schutjes was soon able to perform di- 
vine service in it. It was a long time, however, 
before a pastoral residence was built. During 
this time Father Schutjes resided sometimes in 
the family of Mr. Watson and sometimes in the 
old pioneer hotel, the Woh-erton House. 

"Those were the good old primitive times 
of Bay City, when sawmills were few and far 
between, and banks and newspapers were not 
even in the mind of the prophet. Besides Lower 
Saginaw, Father Schutjes was pastor of the 
entire Sgainaw Valley. He had to divide his 
time between the people at this end of the river 
and those in the upper towns. Every alter- 
nate Sunday he spent in Saginaw City and in 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



277 



East Saginaw, and in the spring and fall when 
the ice was bad and there were no roads, he 
often had great difficulty and many hairbreadth 
escapes in coming to and from those places. 
But the growth in commerce and manufactures 
brought increase in population. 

"The number of Catholics kept pace with 
the general prosperity, and by the year 1863 
they were numerous enough to require the ap- 
pointment of pastors for each of the cities of 
Saginaw City and East Saginaw. Father 
Schutjes was then able to devote his attention 
to the wants of his people in Bay City. Soon 
the little church of St. Joseph became too small 
for the increasing congregation. Frenchmen 
came from Canada and Irishmen came form 
everywhere. Besides those there were many 
stalwart Hollanders and Germans, so that Fa- 
ther Schutjes had to speak many languages to 
'get along' with his people. French and Eng- 
lish, however, being the prevailing languages 
in the congregation, he preached alternately in 
those two tongues until the year 1867. At 
this period it was discovered that not one eighth 
of the congregation could get into St. Joseph's 
Church, so it was resolved at once to commence 
the building of a new church." 

From this point it will be better to trace in- 
dividually the history of the Catholic churches 
here. 

St. Joseph's Church (French). — From 
1869, when Father Girard took charge of the 
parish, until 1900, when Rev. Francis H. Gres, 
the present pastor was appointed, the church 
had a rapid succession of pastors. Father Gi- 
rard remained until January i, 1872. Father 
Delbar succeeded him, but remained only un- 
til the last of the next December, and Father 
Cantors, his successor, remained only to Au- 
gust 31. 1873. Father Grilli, an Italian priest, 
supplied for a few months until November 23, 
1873, 3"d was succeeded by Father Van Strael- 



len, a Hollander, who remained imtil ]March 21, 
1875. Father Grilli then again took charge and 
remained until June 30, 1878, when Father 
Kemper, a German, arrived and remained un- 
til October 19, 1879. The priest who followed 
him died in 1880, and the next pastor, Father 
Ebert, remained only a short time. Father Thi- 
beaudau was next appointed and remained for 
six years. He died in 1886, and was succeeded 
by Father Vitali, an Italian, who remained un- 
til August 21, 1887. The next pastor, Father 
Guerin, remained but a few years. 

In 1888 the parish fell in sore straits suffer- 
ing from the hard times. Father Thibeaudau 
had built the new church in 1880, and a debt 
of $6,000 burdened the congregation, while the 
parsonage was practically a shed. The parish 
was therefore placed under the charge of the 
Holy Ghost Fathers society, which relieved the 
diocese of the burden, while the parish still re- 
mained under the jurisdiction of the bishop. 
Rev. F. J. Rothe C. S. Sp., was accordingly 
sent here in 1888. On June 20, 1894, Father 
Gres, the present pastor, was appointed assist- 
ant. When Father Rothe left in March, 1895, 
the debt of $6,000 had been cleared. He was 
succeeded by Father Dangelzer, and the good 
work of the Holy Ghost Fathers was still fur- 
thered by the erection of a fine commodious 
parsonage at Third and Grant streets on prop- 
erty adjoining the church lot. In 1900 Father 
Dangelzer returned to France, and Father Gres 
was appointed to the charge which he now 
holds. Since 1900, Rev. Alphonse Coignard 
has been assistant. 

The present St. Joseph's Church is a com- 
bination of church and school house. The 
church was erected by Father Thibeaudau with 
a view to supplying a meeting place until a new 
church could be erected. During the hard 
times the new church project was given up. 
Lately it has been revived by Fathers Gres and 



278 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Coigiiard, it being now the intention to have 
the foundations in by November, 1906. The 
new church will cost between $30,00 and $50,- 
000. 

The parish now inckides about 500 families 
and is one of the largest in the valley. The 
wings of the church do duty as school rooms. 
The attendance at school is nearly 380 pupils, 
who are taught by a corps of six Sisters of the 
Dominican Order. In the rear of the church 
there is a roomy and well-appointed residence 
for the Sisters. 

St. James Church. — When it was found 
desirable to divide St. Joseph's congregation, 
ground was selected on the present site of St. 
James' Church, and before the close of Septem- 
ber of that year the new church was dedicated 
under the patronage of St. James the Apostle. 
The church continued under the charge of Fa- 
ther Schutjes until June, 1873. when he was 
called to Detroit to assist the bishop in the af- 
fairs of the diocese. His place was filled by the 
appointment of Rev. Thomas Rafter, a native 
of Monroe County, Michigan. On December 
12, 1884, the church was burned down, and as 
soon as possible the building of the present 
house of worship was commenced. The struc- 
ture is 150 by 75 feet, except the transept, which 
is about 90 feet wide. The church, which seats 
about 1,400, was dedicated on Christmas Day, 
1886. Its cost, completely furnished, was about 
$60,000. The present beautiful and commo- 
dious parochial residence was commenced in 
1901 and completed in 1903. Its cost was $12,- 
000, exclusive of furnishings. There are about 
400 families in St. James' parish. Connected 
with the parish is one of the largest and best 
parochial schools in the city, having an attend- 
ance of 380 pupils. The contract has been let for 
a new school house to be built of brick. This 
will be located in the block just south of the 
church, and will cost about $13,000. 



St. St.a.nislaus Kostk.a. Church (Po- 
lish). — By 1847 the Polish population had- 
grown to such proportions that it became nec- 
essary to provide for them a separate place of 
worship. This was especially desirable as few 
of them had any knowledge of English. Will- 
iam D. Fitzhugh gave a site for the church, 
consisting of eight lots at the corner of Farra- 
gut and 22nd streets. A house of worship cost- 
ing about $4,000 was erected, and served the 
church until the spring of 1889. At that time 
a parochial meeting was held at which it was 
decided to replace the frame building with a 
substantial brick structure. To meet the ex- 
pense, it was decided that each family of the 
parish should contribute $50 ; later this was ■ 
found to be insufficient and the amount was 
raised to $60. Work on the new edifice com- 
menced in 1890, and the church was blessed on 
July 17, 1892. The structure cost $61,000. 
The parish at that time was under the charge 
of Rev. M. Matkowski. He was succeeded by 
Rev. Anthony Bogacki, who was here only a 
few months. His successor. Rev. Joseph Le- 
wandow-ski, also served a few months as tem- 
porary pastor. 

On January 6, 1900, Rev. Edward Koz- 
lowski assumed charge of the parish. During 
his pastorate the debt of $5,000 which he found 
hanging over the church has been paid; the 
Sisters" house has been raised to two stories and 
entirely remodeled ; the parochial residence has 
been raised and put on a stone foundation and 
renovated and repaired; extensive repairs have' 
been made on the parochial school ; electric 
lights installed in the church at an expense of 
over $1,000; a new pulpit has been built at an 
expense of $900; a beautiful main altar with 
over 800 electric lights has been built at a cost 
of $4,500, also two side altars at a cost of 
$2,000; two new confessionals have been built 
at an expense of $350, and a baptismal font at. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



279 



a cost of $400. The towers of the church, 
which are 175 feet high, have been repaired and 
strengthened, the outside of the church painted 
and the crosses regilded with pure gold leaf. 
The cost of the outside repairs upon the church 
reached a total of $2,000. In 1904, Father 
Kozlowski had a new cement walk laid around 
the entire block. This cost over $1,000. 

At present there are in this parish, not 
counting the missions, 1,300 families. It has 
therefore been decided to divide the congrega- 
tion. The old Kinney farm at the corner of 
Cass and Michigan avenues has been purchased 
as a site for the new church. The property 
which measures 600 by 272 feet cost $2,500. 
Plans are being prepared for the erection of a 
school and church combined, the cost of which 
is estimated at $30,000. 

A new congregation of Poles has also been 
organized on the West Side, comprising about 
80 families, and they contemplate erecting a 
church next year. 

During the first three years of Father Koz- 
lowski's pastorate he had for his assistant. Dr. 
V. Wiszniewski, who subsequently died on the 
Island of Trinidad, whither he had gone for his 
health. His successor was Rev. Joseph S. 
Kaminski, who was appointed April 17, 1903, 
and who still remains. He is a young man full 
of zeal and an earnest worker. 

There are about 800 children in the paro- 
chial school connected with this parish, and be- 
sides these over 400 attend the public schools 
for lack of room in the parochial school. There 
are at present 12 teachers employed in the 
school. Funds are being collected to build a 
$30,000 school for this parish. 

In 1887, Father Kozlowski. who was then 
stationed at Midland, started a mission in 
Beaver township. At that time St. Valentine's 
Mission, as it was called, comprised 29 families. 
A school was built, and in this divine services 



were held once a month. At the same time he 
started a mission for Poles in Auburn, and 
school was held alternately three months in 
Auburn and three months in Beaver. In 1889 
Father Kozlowski was transferred to St. Jo- 
seph's Catholic Church in Manistee, and these 
two missions were attended by the various pas- 
tors who were in charge of St. Stanislaus par- 
ish in Bay City. 

When Father Kozlowski was returned to 
this parish on January 6, 1900, he proceeded 
immediately to reorganize the Auburn mission. 
A building site was purchased in Fisherville, 
two miles west of the old location, and a nice 
stone and brick church, with accommodations 
for a school in the basement, was erected. This 
church was dedicated as St. Anthony's Church, 
on September 7, 1902. The church is beauti- 
fully furnished and frescoed. It has three al- 
tars. The cost of the building was about $10,- 
000. Here divine service is held the second 
Sunday and the last Tuesday of every month. 
The parish comprises about 75 Polish families. 
School is held alternately six months in Fish- 
erville and six months in Beaver. At present 
there are a few more than 100 children en- 
rolled in the schools. The Beaver mission has 
also been reorganized. Plans have been pre- 
pared for the erection of a new church, larger 
than the one in Fisherville. It is expected that 
work on the new house of worship will begin 
during 1905, the cost of which is estimated at 
$15,000, including furnishings. It will be of 
brick and stone. 

At Auburn there is also a Catholic mission 
for those who speak English. This is in charge 
of Rev. D. Malone, of Midland. The English 
mission at Pinconning is in charge of Rev. 
Edward Rasette, and the one at Kawkawlin is 
ministered to by Rev. Eutrope Langlois, of 
Linwood. 

St. Boxif.kce Church (German). — The 



28o 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



year 1874 saw the organization of St. Boniface 
parish. The German Cathohcs of Bay City, 
beheving themselves sufficiently strong in pop- 
ulation to form an independent parish, set about 
the work and succeeded. 

Up to this time the German population of 
Bay City, with the people of other races, wor- 
shiped in St. Joseph's Church. St. Joseph's be- 
coming too small to accommodate the mixed 
congregation, the German citizens attended, for 
a time, St. James' Church. In the year above 
referred to they organized an independent pa- 
rish, as suggested by the diocesan authorities. 

In 1874 Rev. Presser, D. D., took charge of 
the new parish. Forty families constituted the 
population of the parish. At the close of the 
year Father Presser resigned, and was succeed- 
ed by Father Rochowski. In 1S78 Rev. Jo- 
seph Ebert was appointed pastor of St. Boni- 
face Church. This priest labored incessantly to 
improve the parish and clear of? indebtedness. 
He built the Sisters' Home, Birney street and 
McKinley avenue. After a pastorate extending 
10 years, Father Ebert resigned in 1888, and 
went south, leaving a great portion of the par- 
ish debt cleared off. 

Rev. John A. Wyss, the present pastor, was 
appointed February 21, 1888. He relniilt the 
interior of the school house, and the Sisters' 
home was also rebuilt through his energy. A 
lot at Lincoln and McKinley avenues was pur- 
chased by him to enlarge the school grounds. 
Subsequently he bought another lot on Lincoln 
avenue to secure increase of ground for the 
church and parochial residence. 

As the old church was being crowded by 
the increase of the congregation, in 1879, steps 
were taken to erect a new building and St. 
John's Benevolent Society was formed to secure 
funds to help the project. This society, with 
a determination that is commendable, kept, for 
15 years, the purpose for which it was organ- 



ized before the people. In 1896 the construc- 
tion of the new church began, the corner-stone 
being laid October 1 1, of the same year. 

For three years work on the new building 
continued, and on June 4, 1899, the church was 
solemnly consecrated. Among those who at- 
tended were Bishop Richter, of Grand Rapids; 
Very Rev. Joseph Benning, V. G., and a num- 
ber of Saginaw and Detroit priests. 

At the time of consecration the church was 
clear of debt, and has the distinction of being 
the only Catholic Church in the Saginaw Val- 
ley to be consecrated. 

The internal decorations of St. Boniface 
Church are of a high order. Among the paint- 
ings representing scenes in the life of Christ 
and the Apostles are the "Last Supper," "SS. 
Peter and Paul" and others of the saints. A 
number of donated windows enhance the cathe- 
dral-like aspect of the interior. 

In 1904 Father Wyss completed a handsome 
parochial residence, which cost $8,000. The 
school of the parish of St. Boniface has about 
150 pupils in attendance. Father Wyss being 
superintendent and Sister Alberta of the Do- 
minican Order, principal. The corps of teach- 
ers is made up of four Sisters, the principal and 
the superintendent. English courses are taught 
as well as German. 

After the destruction by fire, in 1904, of the 
Holy Rosary Academy in Essexville, it was 
decided to rebuild in the parish of St. Boniface. 
Accordingly nine lots of land were purchased 
on Lincoln avenue adjoining the church and 
parochial residence, and work was commenced 
at once on a building 100 by 100 feet in di- 
mensions, to be five stories high, the material 
being stone and pressed brick. The corner- 
stone was laid in 1904. The structure will 
have accommodations for 150 boarding stu- 
dents, while the class rooms will seat 300 pupils. 
The academy is exclusively a school for young 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



281 



ladies, and besides those who make it their 
home, it is expected there will be a large at- 
tendance of pupils living nearby. The struc- 
ture will cost, it is estimated, $60,000. It will 
have every modern convenience, including an 
elevator, and no expense will be spared in 
adapting it perfectly to the uses for which it 
is designed. 

St. M.^ry's Church (West Side). — In 
November, 1873, the building afterward used 
as a school house was dedicated as a church. 
The erection of the present house of worship 
was begun the latter part of May, 1881, and 
was dedicated on the 30th of November, of the 
same year, by Rt. Rev. Casper H. Borgess, 
bishop of the Diocese of Detroit. A very large 
share of the credit for the erection of this costly 
and beautiful church is due to Father Schutjes. 
The parish was set off from Bay City in 1873, 
and the first pastor was Rev. M. G. Cantors. 
Father Schutjes was made pastor of this church 
in the summer of 1880. On March i, 1888, 
Rev. John Sanson became assistant pastor, and 
continued in this capacity until Father Schut- 
jes returned to Europe, when the former be- 
came pastor. His successor was Rev. Joseph 
Schrembs, who was here 1 1 years, and was suc- 
ceeded in October, 1900, by the present pastor. 
Rev. Edward A. Caldwell. There are about 
350 families in the parish. When Father Cald- 
well took up his duties, he found the present 
parochial school in course of construction. It 
is tiiree stories high, and contains eight school 
rooms, a nice chapel in the basement and an 
auditorium on the third floor capable of seat- 
ing 500 people. The school is attended by 390 
pupils. 

Notre D.JlMe de la Visitation (W^est 
Side). — In the early "nineties" the congrega- 
tion of St. Mary's had become so large that it 
was decided to divide it, and to organize the 
French members into another cliurch. Land 



was secured at the corner of State and Smith 
streets, West Bay City, and in the fall of 1895 
the work of building the basement of the church 
was completed. This is of stone. For the past 
10 years services have been held in this base- 
ment. The completed church will cost between 
$50,000 and $60,000. Of this amount, $10,000 
was contributed by St. Mary's Church in ac- 
cordance with the custom which requires that 
portion of a divided congregation which retains, 
the property to contribute an equitable share of 
its value to the new church. When the new 
French church was organized, Rev. John San- 
son was appointed its priest, and remained in 
charge until September 22, 1904, when he was 
succeeded by the present pastor, Father Poulin. 
The present fine parochial school building was 
completed in the early "nineties" at a cost of 
$10,000. There are now about 500 families in 
the parish. 

St. John's Church (Es.sexville). — In 
1884, Father Rafter started a mission in Es- 
sexville. At that time he built the present pa- 
rochial school building, but used it for a tem- 
porary place of worship until the present St. 
John's Church was ready for occupancy. Work 
on this edifice was commenced in 1889, and the 
church was dedicated in 1894. The church has 
a seating capacity of about 700. There are 
about 365 families in the parish. The parochial 
residence was built in 1888. Rev. Cornelius 
Roche was the first priest appointed to this par- 
ish, and he remained until his death by drown- 
ing, in June, 1901. He was succeeded by Rev. 
Peter Bresson, who was pastor for two years 
and nine months. Rev. R. G. Van Rooy, the 
present priest, became pastor on March 2'/, 
1904. 

The Holy Rosary Academy, a boarding 
school for girls, which is presided over by the 
Dominican Sisters, was built by them in 1S98. 
This was destroyed by fire on Marcli 12, 1904, 



:282 



HISTORY OF Bx\Y COUNTY 



and on its site a beautiful brick residence for tbe 
Sisters is being erected. The building is two 
and a half stories high and will be completed 
during the summer of 1905. 

In connection with St. John's Church there 
is also a parochial school in which are enrolled 
265 pupils. 

Sacred Heart Church (Kawkawlin). — 
In 1 89 1 a mission was started here by Father 
Sanson, and later was continued by Father 
Schrembs. The parish at that time comprised 
about 75 families. At first divine serx'ices were 
held in halls. When the mission came under 
the charge of Rev. Eutrope Langlois in 1894, 
a frame church was in course of construction. 
This was completed in 1897, and soon after 
w'as destroyed by fire. Father Roche of Essex- 
ville was next given charge of the mission, and 
he laid the foundation for a church edifice. 
After his death, Father Langlois was again ap- 
pointed to this charge, and he completed the 
present church which is of brick, and 55 by 
85 feet in dimensions. The structure cost be- 
tween $8,000 and $9,000 and the congregation 
now has in hand a fund which will nearly pay 
for a parsonage. 

lutheran churches and schools. 

St. Paul's German Lutheran Church 
(Frankenlust). — In 1848, when Germany was 
in the throes of a re\-olution, Councillor Fred- 
erick Koch assured the employes of his smelters 
in Carlshuetten, Province of Franken. Ger- 
many, that he would secure their future by 
land purchases in far-off Michigan. His son- 
in-law, Rev. Ferdinand Sievers, Sr., of blessed 
memory, led the first flock of emigrants from 
Franken into the wilderness of Bay county in 
1848, creating the colony of Frankenlust. On 
June 22nd of that year, St. Paul's congrega- 
tion was organized by Rev. Mr. Sievers and 14 



colonists. These pioneers of Bay County 
erected and joyfully dedicated their first church 
building the following year. A few years later 
the log structure was found to be insufiicient 
for the needs of the congregation, and in 1857 
a frame church building, in dimensions 70 by 
30 by 22 feet was erected and dedicated. This 
church has been a landmark in Bay County for 
many years. From the beginning the congre- 
gation has always maintained a parochial 
school. Rev. Ferdinand Sievers. Sr., the be- 
loved father of this congregation, died Sep- 
tember 9, 1893, having served faithfully for 45 
years. His successor was Rev. J. J. Trink- 
lein, who remained with the congregation un- 
til the end of 1902. In the spring of the fol- 
lowing year. Rev. P. Andres, the present pas- 
tor was called. From time to time many of the 
younger members of the congregation left to 
organize new churches at Amelith, Kawkaw- 
lin, ]\Ionitor and Salzburg. St. Paul's Church, 
which has always belonged to the Lutheran 
Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States, 
numbers 109 voting members. At present' the 
congregation is building a fine brick house of 
worship at a cost of about $20,000. The cor- 
ner-stone was laid on April 30, 1905 ; Rev. 
J. F. Schinnerer and Rev. L. A. Wissmueller 
officiated. 

St. John's German Lutheran Church 
(Amelith). — In 1850 Councillor Frederick 
Koch, of Carlshuetten, Province of Fraken, 
Germany, \isited the colony of Frankenlust, 
sent out by him two years before under his 
son-in-law, Rev. Ferdinand Sievers, Sr., and 
arranged for the purchase of all the govern- 
ment lands adjoining Frankenlust on the south, 
80 acres to be set aside for church purposes. 
This spot was named Amelitli, in honor of 
the birthplace of ]Mrs. Koch, and on July 25, 
1 85 1, the colonists of Frarikenlust erected a 
rude but massive block house at Amelith, to 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



283 



serve the double purpose of lodging house for 
the coming immigrants as well as school and 
church. The Stengel and Link families came 
from Rostall in Franken that fall, and erected 
the first log house near the church. In June 
1852 came the Eichinger, Lutz, Schnell, 
.Schmidt, Stephan, Daschlein, Rueger, Burk 
and Heumann families, who lived in the church 
until they could erect log houses of their own. 
On June 24, 1852, Rev, Mr, Sievers conse- 
crated the little congregation and their house 
of worship. Eighteen families came from 
Franken in 1853, and for the next 15 years 
more colonists settled about Amelith. The 
older children attended the parochial or dis- 
trict school at Frankenlust, while Rev. Mr. 
Sievers taught the little ones, in addition to 
looking after the spiritual welfare of three 
widely scattered and growing congregations. 
Cantor Mueller (1856-57), Guenther (1860- 
65), Becker (1866-68), Kuch (1869-71), 
Taesch (1872-75), J. G. Winterstein (1875- 
94), J. D. Barthel (1894-1901) and Ernst 
Rolf (1901-05) have presided in turn and with 
splendid results over the parochial school. 

Rev. Mr. Sievers served Amelith for 15 
years, with short intervals of local supply, but 
by 1867 the venerable colonist and preacher 
was obliged to give up this additional charge, 
and Rev. J. F. Mueller was installed in De- 
cember, 1867, and for nearly 32 years con- 
tinued his ministrations. On Trinity Sunday, 
1899, lie preached his farewell sermon amid 
the congregation he had served so long and 
well. Rev. J. F. Schinnerer ',was installed 
September 15, 1899, and is the present pastor, 
Ijcloved and esteemed by his congregation. 
Thus in over 50 years this congregation has 
had but three pastors, a living evidence of 
useful cooperation. 

In the winter of 1869-70 the colonists gath- 
ered the material for their present commodious 



church, costing $5,000, in addition to the labor 
of the parishioners, and on November 10, 1870, 
the new edifice was dedicated. In 1901 the 
congregation built a new school house at a cost 
of $1,500. During the 50 years just passed, 925 
children were baptized, 562 were confirmed, 
183 couples were married, 280 parishioners 
died, and 24,275 attended communion. This 
congregation now numbers 740 souls, 450 com- 
municants, 155 school children and 150 voting 
members. The annual outlay is $1,500 locally, 
and $350 for missionary work and the synod. 
The development of the early colonists and 
their children's material interests have kept 
pace with their faithful devotion and their 
spiritual welfare. On April 30, 1905, this 
congregation in a body assisted in laying the 
corner-stone for the new church of their sister 
colony at Frankenlust. 

Bethel German Lutheran Church 
was organized October 31, 1852, with 21 
members, by Rev. J. Ehrhardt, who was the 
first pastor. H. C. Hage, I. T. Wespinter and 
H. Moeller were chosen and ordained presid- 
ing elders. Until 1855 the church held its 
services in various halls; but in that year a 
small house of worship was erected on Wash- 
ington avenue between Seventh and Eighth 
streets. This was dedicated in March, 1856, 
by Rev. C. Volz, who was pastor at that time. 
This structure was soon enlarged. Rev. Mr. 
Volz continued as pastor until 1859, from 
which time until 1861 the church was without 
a settled pastor. Rev. F. W. Spindless then 
became pastor and remained with the church 
two years. His successor was Rev. John Haas, 
who remained with the church until June, 1865. 
The church was then without a pastor until 
September nth of that year, when Rev. Wil- 
liam Reuther became their minister. In the 
spring of 1866 a new church edifice was 
erected, and the old building was removed to 



284 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



the rear and behind the parsonage. The new 
church was dedicated June i6, 1867. The old 
church was used as a parochial school building. 
In June, 1871, the church was supplied with 
three bells. On October 25th of the same year, 
church and school house were destroyed by 
fire. It was then decided to sell the old church 
ground and to purchase their present site, 
which comprises three lots on the corner of 
Madison and McKinley avenues. Their pres- 
ent beautiful house of worship was erected in 
1872, and was dedicated on November 25th of 
that year by Rev. William Reuther, and officers 
of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Michi- 
gan, of which body the congregation is a mem- 
ber. The church is of brick, 95 by 42 feet, 
with a steeple 150 feet high, in which two fine- 
toned bells are hung. On July 22, 1888, a pipe 
organ costing $1,000 was installed. The pres- 
ent parsonage, which is the third one the so- 
ciety has owned, was built in 1891, and at the 
same time a house for the teacher of the 
parochial school was built on Farragut street 
between loth and nth streets. 

In 1883 Rev. Mr. Reuther was succeeded 
by Rev. O. W. Wuest, who remained with the 
congregation until April, 1884. In 1884 the 
church connected itself with the Synod of Wis- 
consin. The pulpit was then supplied by a 
student from the seminary of that synod, 
named E. Steimke. He remained with the 
church until June, 1885. On [March 22. 1885, 
the church called Rev. J. G. Oehlert, who be- 
gan his pastoral duties on July 4th of that year. 
In 1 89 1 he was succeeded by Rev. F. Stromer, 
who served the church until October, 1900. 
Rev. E. Klingman was next called, and he 
took charge in the fall of 1901 and was here 
until April, 1904. From that time until the 
last of July, Rev. A. C. Haase of South Bay 
City supplied the pulpit, and on July 31, 1904, 



the present pastor. Rev. F. Thrune. assumed 
his duties. 

It was not until 1887 that the congregation 
felt able to call a teacher for their parochial 
school, instruction, in the meantime, having 
been given by the pastor, as is the custom of 
this denominatioin. The first teacher was D. 
Fogel, who was succeeded in 1898 by Prof. 
F. Siegler, who is still principal of the school, 
and has one assistant. Miss Bertha Diehl. 

Em'anuel German Lutheran Church 
dates back to the year 1854, six years after Rev. 
Ferdinand Sievers, Sr., the pioneer of Lu- 
theran ministers in this county, founded the 
colony of Frankenlust. By him the little flock 
in Bay City was served, in connection with his 
labors for St. Raul's society at Frankenlust, for 
II years. In 1865, Rev. I. C. Himmler took 
charge of the society, then numbering about 
20 voting members. When he resigned, in the 
autumn of 1867, there were about 25 voting 
members in the society. Its property consisted 
of the lot on the northwest corner of Sixth 
street and [Madison avenue, with a small church 
building 18 by 30 feet in dimensions and a 
school house. In July, 1868, the church hav- 
ing been nine months without a pastor. Rev. 
J. H. P. Partenfekler, a graduate of the Lu- 
theran Concordia Seminary at St. Louis, began 
his ministrations to the congregation. In 1873, 
the house of worship having become too small, 
an addition 22 by 30 feet in size was con- 
structed. The society grew and prospered so 
that in 1889 it became necessary to build a new- 
church. At that time the present fine structure 
was erected at a cost of $18,000. The first 
services were held in the new church in the fall 
of 1889. The census of the church shows 
1,275 souls, 848 comnumicants and 141 voting 
members. Rev. Mr. Partenfelder's pastorate 
was brought to a close bv his death on Decem- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



285 



ber 12, 1896, after 28 years of faithful service 
in the Master's vineyard. His successor was 
Rev. C. F. Graebner, wlio serxed the church 
until 1903, when he was called to the presi- 
dency of the Lutheran University of Australia. 
He was succeeded by the present pastor, Rev. 
Paul Budach. Like other churches of this 
faith, Emanuel Church supports a parochial 
school, which is a model educational institu- 
tion, with 225 pupils. John M. Helmreich is 
the principal, with two assistants. 

St. John's Germ.\n Lutheran Church 
(West Side). — This church was organized De- 
cember 28, 1862, by the late Rev. Christopher 
L. Eberhardt, of Saginaw. There were 20 
charter members. For several months they 
held services in the house of George Kiesel, 
where the church had been organized ; meet- 
ings were also held for a time in the school 
house in Bangor, and later in W'enona. The 
church was built in 1872, and dedicated on 
September 15th of the same year. At that 
time it was 30 by 40 feet in dimensions. In 
1873 the congregation joined the Synod of 
Michigan and other States. Up to that time 
the pulpit had been supplied by various preach- 
ers of the same faith. Rev. William Reuther 
was the first pastor. He was followed by Rev. 
O. \\'uest, who served the congregation until 
1884. On January ist of the following year 
Rev. A. P. Mueller was called, and served until 
his death in December, 1888. During his pas- 
torate a bell was placed in the steeple at a cost 
of $200. The parsonage at the corner of Jane 
and Kiesel streets was built in 1887 at a cost 
of $1,100; the school house was also built in 
that year. Previous to that time, school had 
been ke])t in the church. Rev. J. F. Mayer 
commenced his lators with this consrreffation 
January 8, 1888, and remained with them un- 
til 1892. During his last vear the congregation 



called for a teacher, and H. Waterstratt was 
appointed. He served only one year. 

The present pastor. Rev. J. F. Henning, 
commenced his labors July 12, 1892, and for 
the first three years of his pastorate also taught 
school, as the congregation was small at that 
time and could not well afford the expense of 
a teacher. In 1894 E. Dobbratz was secured to 
teach the school and remained until 1896. At 
that time the pastor again took up the work of 
teaching. In about a year Samuel Linsenmann 
came to teach the school, but he only remained 
a short time. In 1894 a stone foundation was 
placed under the church, and this together with 
other extensive repairs, including painting and 
decorating, cost $680. In the same year the 
pastor founded a library in the church, which 
now has several hundred volumes on its shelves. 

In 1901 the church was rebuilt at a cost of 
$3,000. It now has seating capacity for about 
500 persons. There are 90 voting members, 
850 souls, 250 communicants and 142 families. 
There are 89 pupils in the Sunday-school and 
50 in the parochial school. The teacher of the 
latter school, Philip Kircher, took up the work 
in 1901. 

Trinity Germ.an Lutheran Church 
(Monitor). — This congregation was founded 
in the spring of 1880 by the late Rev. Ferdin- 
and Sievers, Sr., of Frankenlust. The organi- 
zation was efifected on July i8th of that year, 
at which time the constitution was adopted 
and the first officers were elected. These were 
Rev. Ferdinand Sievers, Jr., president: and J. 
L. Enser, secretary'. There were 17 charter 
members. A few months later their first house 
of worship was built. It was 36 bv 22 by 
14 feet, and cost $660. The church was dedi- 
cated November 7, 1880, and three days later, 
Rev. Air. Sievers, who was the first pastor, 
began to teach the parochial school of 10 pupils. 



16 



286 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



In 1887 it became necessary to build an addi- 
tion to the church 26 by 22 feet, which cost 
about $200. In 1S89 A. H. Gehrs was ap- 
pointed as the first teacher for the parochial 
school. In 1896 the first pastor accepted a 
call to South Chicago, and the present pastor. 
Rev. L. A. Wissmueller was chosen by the 
congregation. In the same year the first steps 
toward building a new church edifice were 
taken. The corner-stone was laid on July 18, 
1897, and the church was dedicated on Febru- 
ary 6, 1898. It is one of the largest and pret- 
tiest country churches in the county, measur- 
ing 106 by 42 feet, giving ample seating room 
for 600 people. The tower reaches a height of 
130 feet, and holds two bells which weigh 
about 2,800 pounds. The total cost amounted 
to about $11,117. 

The present building for the western 
parochial school was erected in 1903. together 
with a residence for the teacher. The follow- 
ing year, the old church building, which had 
served for a school house for the eastern 
parochial school, was taken down and the pres- 
ent building erected. The old parsonage 
which, after a new one had been constructed 
in 1893, had served as a residence for the 
teacher, was rebuilt and enlarged. During the 
past 12 years, the congregation has expended 
for building purposes about $17,000 which sum 
was raised by voluntary contributions. The 
annual expenses of the church, which amount 
to about $2,000 are raised in like manner. 
The congregation numbers 670 souls, 390 com- 
municants, 112 voting members. About 120 
pupils attend the two parochial schools, where 
they are instructed in the common branches of 
learning and in the German language and in 
religion. 

Trinity German Lutheran Church. 
— This is the youngest Lutheran congregation 
on the East Side. It was organized March 26, 



1886, by members of Bethel German Lutheran 
Church. The church edifice is located at the 
corner of Broadway and 32nd street. It was 
built in the latter part of 1886 and was dedi- 
cated on the second Sunday in January, 1887. 
The church is a frame structure 40 by 80 feet 
in dimensions, valued at $5,000; the parochial 
school, which has two class rooms, is valued 
at $2,000 and the parsonage at $1,000. The 
congregation has 70 voting members. The 
following is a list of the pastors, beginning 
with the founder of the church : Revs. J. G. 
Oehlert, March, 1886 to July, 1887: G. E. 
Bergemann, 1887-92; T. A. Sauer, 1892-95; 
H. H. Hoffmann, 1895-96; and A. C. Haase, 
the present pastor, who took charge in 1897. 
There are 81 children enrolled in the parochial 
school. The following teachers have had 
charge of the school : C. A. Berling, Miss 
Helen C. Haase, Gustav Schulz, ]\Iiss Emily 
von \\'althausen. The pastor always has 
charge of one division. 

ZioN German Lutheran Church 
(West Side). — This church is the outgrowth 
of a mission established in Salzburg by Rev. 
C. F. Graebner about the year 1900. L'nder 
his leadership and with the support of Emanuel 
German Lutheran Church, of which he was 
pastor, the mission developed into an independ- 
ent congregation, which for upwards of two 
years has been self-supporting. The church was 
organized with 1 1 charter members on April 
23, 1901, For a meeting place the Salzburg 
German Band Hall was purchased and re- 
modeled. It was dedicated August 17, 1902, 
and they now have a comfortable house of 
worship seating about 250 persons. The 
church numbers about 350 souls, 200 communi- 
cants and 50 voting members. Rev. Mr. 
Graebner filled the pulpit until Januarys 1903. 
On February 5th of that year the present pas- 
tor Rev. E. \^^ Bohn, was installed. Their 



AND REPRESENTATR'E CITIZENS. 



287 



parochial school was established in November, 
1903, at which time the present school was pur- 
chased from St. PauFs German Lutheran 
Church at Frankenlust. They have about 70 
pupils. J. \V. Putz has been the teacher since 
the school was established. Their present par- 
sonage, which is one of the best owned by the 
denomination in the Saginaw Valley, was 
built in 1903. 

St. B.\rtholomeus Germ.xn Lutheran 
Church (Kawkawlin). — This church be- 
longs to the Michigan Synod. It has 39 vot- 
ing members, 154 communicants and 277 souls 
in its parish. They own a nice church, school 
house and parsonage. Thirty children are en- 
rolled in their parochial school. On May 7, 
1905, the present pastor, Rev. H. Kionka, took 
charge. 

ScANDiN.\vi.\N Lutheran Church (\\'est 
Side). — This society, which belongs to the 
Illinois Conference, was organized in 1880 
with about 13 voting members by Rev. A. 
Schalman, who remained with them as pastor 
for some time. He was followed by Rev. S. 
C. Rydberg, who served the church five 
years. The next pastor was Rev. A. J. Ander, 
whose pastorate also extended over a period 
of five years. Then caine Rev. C. A. Lindevall, 
who remained about two years. His successor 
was Rev. A. B. Lilja, who remained until 1901. 
In /une of that year the present pastor, Rev. 
J. E. Holtz, took up his duties. 

The present church edifice was built in 
1881, and has sealing capacity of about 400 
people. The church, school and parsonage to- 
gether are valued at about $8,000. The par- 
sonage was built in 1S82, and the school build- 
ing, called Luther Hall, was erected in 1885. 
The children attend the public schools during 
the school year, and during the summer va- 
cation half-day sessions are held in the paro- 
chial school by the pastor. The church num- 



bers 125 voting members, 225 communicants 
and about 400 souls. About 125 pupils are 
enrolled in the Sunday-school. In 1904 a pipe 
organ was installed at an expense of about 
$1,200. 

protestant episcopal churches. 

Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church. 
— This chiu'ch owes its establishment first to 
the Fitzhugh family, W. D. Fitzhugh having 
been the earliest leader in the society, and his 
wife the first communicant. The first male 
communicant was Israel Catlin. In the fall of 
1850 the first ministrations of an Episcopal 
clergyman were received in this section. Rev. 
Joseph Adderly made a few missionary visits 
and held services three times. Again from 
December 21, 1851 to July 4. 1852, another 
missionary. Rev. Daniel B. Lyon, made occa- 
sional appointments, conducting worship in 
all about a half dozen times. On the 22nd of 
January, 1853. Rev. Voltaire Spaulding en- 
tered upon his duties, giving this field the bene- 
fit of stated services, which were held upon 
each third Sunday. To defray this expense a 
small sum was raised by the congregation, and 
the balance was paid by the missionary society. 
On the 4th of March, 1854, the parish organi- 
zation was formed under the title of "Trinity 
Church, Lower Saginaw, Saginaw County, 
Michigan." Rev. Mr. Spaulding resigned on 
June I, 1858. At this time there were only 
five communicants, and the church remained 
without a pastor until May. 1S60. During 
this time the work was going steadily forward. 
An excellent site was secured on what is now 
Washington avenue, and plans were put in 
operation for the erection of a church. 
Through the liberality of friends at home and 
abroad sufficient means were obtained to build 
a neat though small edifice, which was conse- 



28S 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



crated to the worsliip of God on May lo, i860. 
The services of a minister were again secured. 
Rev. Edward Magee, of St. John's Protestant 
Episcopal Church, Saginaw City, agreeing to 
devote one-half of his time to Trinity parish. 
He preached here on each alternate Sunday 
until May 25, 1861, when he resigned his 
charge in Saginaw City and confined himself 
to the church work here. Ill health compelled 
him to resign on November 28th of the same 
year. The pulpit remained vacant for nearly 
a year, and then Rev. Gilbert B. Hayden was 
called to the rectorship. The tenii of his min- 
istry, which commenced November 24, 1862, 
lasted only five months. He performed a good 
work for the parish in writing a history of the 
church, on which the article from which we get 
our information was based. The next rector 
was Rev. A. JM. Lewis, who entered upon his 
duties Oct. i, 1863. His earnestness and ac- 
tivity did not go unrewarded, for in August, 
1864, it was found necessary to enlarge the 
church building. This was accomplished in 
two and a half months at a cost of $1,200. 
Rev. Mr. Lewis resigned on the 15th Sunday 
after Trinity, 1S65. 

On January 19, 1866, Rev. Fayette Royce, 
of Nunda, New York, was called, and assumed 
the responsibilities of his new position on the 
third Sunday of Lent, 1866. During his rec- 
torship the building was again found inade- 
quate for the increasing congregation, and a 
second addition was made. He resigned No- 
vember 15, 1868, and in the following Feb- 
ruary, Rev. John Wright, D. D., was called to 
the rectorship. He preached his first sermon 
as rector April 11, 1869. On reaching the 
scene of his labors, he found that the church 
building had recently undergone a third ex- 
tension at an expense of $2,387.81. On Janu- 
ary 18, 1874, the new organ, which had cost 
$3,150 was used for the first time. Dr. 



Wright resigned January 25, 1874, and was 
succeeded by Rev. George P. Schetky, D. D., 
who became pastor June 21st of the same year. 
He remained until April 4, 1877, and was fol- 
lowed by Rev. Alfred A. Alford, D. D., who 
assumed the duties of the rectorship the same 
year, and remained here se\-en years. During 
his incumbency the new stone chapel on Grant 
street was erected at a cost of $15,000. It has 
a seating capacity for 300 people. It was 
completed in 1883, and was occupied as a 
church until the present beautiful edifice was 
finished in 1887. Including furnishings this 
house of worship cost $70,000. It will seat 
500 people. The first service was held on 
Wednesday in Easter week, April 14. 1887. 
After the chapel was completed, the old church 
property on Washington avenue was sold to 
B. E. Warren and Capt. C. M. Averell. 

Rev. A. A. Butler succeeded Dr. Alford as 
rector, and he was followed by Rev. Edwin R. 
Bishop, who resigned in the fall of 1887 after 
five years of earnest labor. The next rector 
was Rev. Thomas W. McLean, who remained 
with the church until 1901, when he was suc- 
ceeded by the present rector. Rev. Amos Wat- 
kins. The present membership of the church 
is about 500. 

Trinity Church has always been active in 
missionary work. In 1872 a mission was 
started at Wenona under the charge of George 
A. Cooke as lay leader. On October 20th of 
the same year the rector organized Trinity 
chapel in the Seventh \\'ard of Bay City. 
Three other missions were organized : at 
Banks, McEwanville (now part of Essexville) 
and Essexville. On October 12. 1873, Rev. 
Lewis L. Rogers entered upon his duties as 
missionary at these missions, and continued in 
this work nearly a year. The mission in Es- 
sexville was continued until 1905. when the 
property was sold. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



291 



Grace Protestant Episcopal Church 
(West Side). — In 1S72 a parish in West Bay 
City under the name of St. Paul's Protestant 
Episcopal Church was organized by Trinity 
Church of Bay City. This was placed under 
the charge of George A. Cooke as lay reader. 
There were two missions, one at Wenona and 
the other at Banks. Rew Lewis L. Rogers was 
the first rector. In 1874 a neat house of wor- 
ship was built at Wenona upon lots of land 
donated by Mr. and Mrs. Henry W. Sage. 
In October, 1874, Rev. J. E. Jackson received 
an appointment as missionary. He was suc- 
ceeded by Rev. Mr. \\'ilson. After the latter 
went away, no regular services were held, al- 
though a Sunday-school was kept up for some 
time. The members finally driftetl apart and 
the society became disbantled. Matters con- 
tinued in this shape until February, 1893, when 
Rev. J. E. Ramsdell came to this field and 
found a few women who were interested. This 
was the beginning of the present Grace Church. 
He began to hold services in the liasement of 
the Birchard Block. The following June, the 
old Presbyterian Church, which for some time 
had been in use as a school, was rented and 
used as a house of worship. Rev. Mr. Rams- 
dell went away in November, 1894, and was 
succeeded on the ist of the following January 
by Rev. ;\Ir. Barr. The Board of Education 
about this time wanted the building, and the 
society secured meeting rooms in the Moots 
Block. Rev. Mr. Barr gave up the work in 
May, 1895, leaving in charge Rev. George 
Wye, whose pastorate covered a year, and then 
regular services were given up. The Ladies' 
Aid Society, however, still kept together and 
at work, and in September. 1898, Rev. G. F. 
A. McKelcan came and took hold of the work. 
Services were held in the Adventist Church 
until December, when arrangements were made 
to purchase the old Presbyterian Church, and 



as soon as it was put in repair the society moved 
in. In the spring of 1899 Rev. Mr. jNIcKelcan 
was called to Midland, and the services were 
kept up by supplies until January, 1900, when 
Rev. W. R. Blachford took charge of the grow- 
ing mission. He stayed until May, 1902, and 
was followed by the present pastor. Rev. Ed- 
ward Jermin. Christmas, 1903, found the debt 
on the church building all cleared and many 
improvements paid for. The society is grow- 
ing rapidly, and has secured three lots on Mid- 
land street, where a modern church edifice will 
be erected in the near future. 

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES. 

First Presbyterian Church. — In 1855 
the population of Lower Saginaw had increased 
so much that it was thought advisable to make 
a move towards hiring a Presbyterian min- 
ister. A subscription paper was circulated and 
$300 was subscribed towards supporting a 
minister for one year, expecting the Home 
Missionary Society would pay the balance of 
a necessary salary. The late William Jennison, 
father of Charles E. Jennison, was the prime 
mover in starting the subscription. The first 
pastor was Rev. L. I. Root, who commenced 
his labors about the first of ^lay. 1856. On 
the 5th of the following September the church 
was formally organized as the First Presby- 
terian Church of Lower Saginaw, with eight 
charter members. Rev. Mr. Root was in- 
stalled by the Presbytery of Saginaw in No- 
vember, 1858, and continued to serve the 
church until February, i860. Rev. E. J. Stew- 
art acted as stated supply from June, 1861, 
to December, 1863. 

During its first years, the church worshipped 
in the school house which stood at the north 
end of Washington a\'enue, where for many 
years all public meetings were held. After- 



292 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Avard its meetings were in a public hall, and 
for a time in the Court House. In 1S61 a 
churc!> editice was erected ; soon after its dedi- 
cation, while the congregation was in the midst 
of a communion service, it took fire and was 
consumed. The building of a new house of 
■worship was immediately commenced, the dedi- 
cation of which occurred December 25, 1863. 
The church was constructed of wood and was 
originally 40 by 70 feet in size upon the 
ground, with sittings for 400 persons. 

Rev. Mr. Stewart closed his labors with 
the church in September, 1864. In April, 

1865, Rev. J. Ambrose Wight, D. D., was 
called as pastor and commenced his labors on 
the first Sabbath of the following Mav. He 
Avas installed by the Presbytery of Saginaw on 
November 23rd of the same year. The bell 
was placed in the church tower in August, 

1866. The lecture room was built in the au- 
tumn of 1868, and the main building was en- 
larged with a tier of pews on each side in the 
fall of 1872. Dr. Wight's activity as pastor 
continued until 1888, when he was made pas- 
tor emeritus. To Dr. Wight more than to 
any other man is due the strength and char- 
acter and prominence of the church, in all its 
civil and ecclesiastical relations. 

In 1886, Rev. Burt Estes Howard was 
called as an assistant to Dr. Wight, and was 
installed as pastor of the church June 28, 1888. 
He remained with the church until October 26, 
1890. On the 3rd of the following June, Rev. 
William H. Clark, D. D., became the pastor, 
and labored most faithfully and successfully 
until ;May i. 1896. 

During the latter part of the pastorate of 
Dr. Wight, and during the pastorate of Rev. 
]\Ir. Howard, preparations were made for a 
new house of worship. This effort resulted in 
the construction of the present stone edifice, 
which was erected at a cost, including the site 



and furnishings, of $105,000. It is said to 
be one of the largest and handsomest buildings 
in the Northwest. The corner-stone was laid 
June 25, 1891, and the dedication took place 
June 6, 1893. 

Following Dr. Clark, the next pastor was 
Rev. Otis A. Smith, D. D., who was called on 
June 15, 1896 and who entered upon his work 
the following July. He was installed by the 
Presbytery of Saginaw on the 2nd of October, 
1896, and continued with the church until Feb- 
ruary, 1902. There was then a long interval, 
during which the church was without a settled 
pastor. In the summer of 1902, Rev. James 
Gale Inglis supplied the pulpit, and then re- 
ceived a call to become pastor. This call he 
did not accept until the following year. He was 
installed as pastor in ^larch. 1903, and con- 
tinued until March 19, 1905, when he resigned 
on account of ill health. He was a man be- 
loved by the entire community. The church 
is at present without a pastor. 

Westminster Presbyteriax Church 
(West Side). — About the first of November, 
1863, Rev. D. B. Campbell was sent as a mis- 
sionary by the Presbytery of Saginaw to the 
lower part of the Saginaw Valley. His field 
of labor comprised Bangor, Kawkawlin and 
Portsmouth townships. Services were held 
in the school houses at Banks and A\'enona for 
the convenience of people living in the town- 
ship of Bangor. In January, 1864. after Sage 
& ]\IcGraw had purchased the site of what was 
to become the village of Wenona, Rev. 'Sir. 
Campbell called upon Henry W. Sage, and 
asked a donation of two lots on which to build 
a church. The request was promptly granted, 
and two lots on Catherine street were given, 
and on behalf of the firm Mr. Sage generously 
agreed to double any subscriptions that could 
be secured for the purpose of building a church. 
Early in 1865 a meeting was held at Rev. Mr. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



293 



Campbell's house, at which a church society 
was organized. At this time the church was 
called the First Presbyterian Church of Ban- 
gor. The first elders of the church were Ste- 
phen Buchanan and J. H. Plum ; the first trus- 
tees. J. S. Taylor, J. B. Ostrander and John G. 
Sweeney. 

The eflforts to raise money for a church 
edifice were successful and the work of build- 
ing was vigorously pushed forward. The cor- 
ner-stone was laid on August 23. 1865, and 
the house of worship was dedicated on the 3rd 
of the following December. The dedicatory 
sermon was preached by Rev. J. Ambrose 
\\"ight, D, D., of Bay City. The cost of the 
structure was $3,500, and the furnishings cost 
$500 more. Of this amount Sage & RIcGraw 
contributed about $2,000. Rev. Mr. Camp- 
bell continued with the society until some time 
in 1 868, when he was succeeded by Rev. E. 
T. Sanford, of Schenectady, New York. His 
pastorate came to a close in January, 1870, 
and for about a year the church remained with- 
out a pastor. In April, 1871, a call was ex- 
tended to Rev. L. W. Chapman, who began his 
labors with the society soon afterward, and con- 
tinited until May i, 1880. The next pastor 
was Rev. Donald L. ]\Ionroe, who was suc- 
ceeded by Rev. Charles Noble Frost. The last 
named remained only about a year, and was 
followed by Rev. W. P. Miller, who closed his 
pastorate in 1892 after three years of faithful 
service. The next pastor was Rev. W. F. Ir- 
win, who remained with the church about three 
years. From the summer of 1896 until Octo- 
ber 6th of that year the pulpit was supplied by 
various preachers, but on the last named date 
Rev. E. K. Strong began a pastorate which 
extended over a period of six years. He re- 
signed August 3, 1902, and on November 9th 
of the same year the present pastor. Rev. An- 
drew S. Zimmerman, began his labors. 



Memorial Presbyterian Church. — This 
church is the outgrow'th of a mission estab- 
lished by the First Presbyterian Church in 
1870. It was located at that time on Broadway 
near 23rd street. The chapel which was erected 
cost $1,500, and was later enlarged and fur- 
nished at an expense of $500 more. In 1875 
an organ was purchased and other improve- 
ments made. The work in this locality con- 
tinued to prosper, and in 1891 the church was 
organized. Its first pastor was Rev. Robert 
C. H. Sinclair, who remained with them two 
years. In 1893. ^s^'- Peter E. Nichols was 
called, and served the church until 1896. Dur- 
ing his pastorate the church edifice was re- 
moved from the original location to where it 
now stands, and was rebuilt in order to accom- 
modate larger congregations. Altogether, the 
present property is worth about S3. 000. This 
includes a parsonage which was on the present 
site when it was purchased, but which has since 
been remodeled. The church will now easily 
seat about 350 persons. Following Rev. Mr. 
Nichols, came Rev. Perry V. Jennes, who re- 
mained with the church about three years, his 
pastorate coming to a close in 1898. Rev. 
David B. Greigg next ministered to the church, 
the term of his service running from the fall 
of 1898 until the spring of 1900. The pulpit 
was then supplied by various preachers. Rev. 
^Ir. \\'inter coming to them in July. 1900, and 
remaining until February, 1901. The present 
pastor. Rev. \^"illiam Bryant, took up his work 
with this church in ]March, 1901, and the 
church is prospering under his care. The pres- 
ent membership of the church is 185, while 
there are 200 students enrolled in the Sunday- 
school. 

Covenant Presbyterian Church (West 
Side). — In the summer of 1889, Hon. F. W. 
Wheeler established the mission from which 
this church has developed. The mission re- 



294 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



mained under the direction of the Westminster 
Presbyterian Church until the present society 
was organized in 1890. Their house of worship 
ship was erected in the spring of 1889, and was 
dedicated in June of that year. Its dimensions 
are 40 by 70 feet with an annex 30 by 40 feet. 
It has seating capacity for about 250 people, 
and cost $1,500. Rev. L. W. Chapman sup- 
plied the pulpit for a season, and was followed 
by a student from Princeton Theological Sem- 
inary by the name of Sinclair. He conducted 
preaching services on Sunday and a prayer 
meeting was held during the week. The Sun- 
day-school work was also kept up during this 
time. In the fall of 1889 a call was extended 
to Rev. A. F. Whitehead. He died the follow- 
ing year, and was succeeded by Rev. J. G. Gra- 
biel. Under his able ministry the membership 
of the church was more than tripled. Rev. 
Grabiel's pastorate came to a close after five 
and one half years of service, and in the same 
3'ear, 1895, Rev. Alexander Danskin, now edi- 
tor of the Micliigan Presbyterian, began a min- 
istry that extended over three years. The next 
pastor was Rev. George Luther, who came 
to the church in 1899, and remained about 
a year. After his release the pulpit remained 
vacant for nearly a year, though the Sunday- 
school was held from week to week without in- 
terruption. Then, in 1903, an arrangement was 
entered into whereby Rev. J. G. Grimmer, pas- 
tor of the German Reformed Church, of Salz- 
burg, supplied the pulpit once each Sunday for 
18 months. He was released in 1904, and the 
pulpit is now supplied by Rev. W. L. Rleck- 
stroth, who is also his successor in the Salz- 
burg church. The church started with 13 char- 
ter members and has now a membership of 60. 
The attendance at the Sunday-school averages 
about 125. 

Hunger Presbyteri.\n Church (Hun- 
ger). — Rev. John B. Dawson, who was a pio- 



neer Congregationalist in this section, during 
his pastorate in Essexville came to Hunger and 
gathered the members of the various denomin- 
ations together to hold meetings. He continued 
this missionary work at intervals for years. 
About 18 years ago a number of these people 
came together and organized a Presbyterian 
Church. Their first pastor was Rev. Samuel P. 
Todd, who served the congregation for seven 
years. His successor was Rev. H. P. Parker, 
who remained several years. Then, after an in- 
terval during which the church had no settled 
pastor, came Rev. Mr. Austin, who was here 
about two years. He was followed by Rev. 
Mr. McAllister, whose successor, Rev. Mr. 
Daily, is the present pastor. 

Germ.\n Reformed Church (West 
Side). — The church was organized September 
26, 1880, with 27 charter members. At the 
meeting which met for that purpose, in the 
home of Jacob Laderach, it was decided to ex- 
tend a call to Rev. E. W^ Henscheii to become 
their first pastor. Meetings were held in the 
homes of the various members until April 22, 
1 88 1, when they purchased their present church 
property. This was the original meeting house 
of the first Methodist society. Their second 
pastor was Rev. R. Kirchefer, who was called 
in December, 1884, and commenced his labors 
at once. His pastorate extended to March, 
1886. He was followed by Rev. Isaac Mat- 
zinger who assumed his duties in November of 
that year and remained until October, 1892. 
The next pastor was Rev. Mr. Ruetenik who 
ministered to the church until November 26, 
1899. Rev. Richard Harnish came to the 
church January i, 1900, and remained as pas- 
tor until September 30th of the same year. The 
church was then without a settled pastor until 
July 7, 1901, when Rev. J. G. Grimmer took 
charge. He remained until July 31, 1904, and 
on the first Sunday in October of that year, the 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



295 



present pastor, Rev. W. L. Meckstroth began 
his pastorate. The church now has a member- 
ship of 100, and an average attendance at the 
Sunday-school of 40. The present parsonage, 
which is valued at nearly $1,000, was built 
largely by the church's first pastor, who per- 
formed much of the labor with his own hands. 

BAPTIST CHURCHES. 

Broadway Baptist Church. — The first 
Baptist Church in the Saginaw Valley, known 
today as the Broadway Baptist Church, was 
organized in the residence of Jessie N. Braddock 
in the township of Portsmouth, Bay County, 
Michigan, June 15, 1858. The name given the 
new church was : "The First Baptist Church 
of Portsmouth." The following is a list of the 
constituent members : Jessie and Mrs. Brad- 
dock, Appleton and Mrs. Stevens, Mrs. Susan 
Eraser, Mrs. A. McEwan, INIiss Elizabeth Era- 
ser. Henry A. Braddock, J. S. Judson, D. C. 
Miller, H. D. Braddock, John S. Wilson, Mrs. 
Sarah E. Johnson, Mrs. Susan Eddy, and Mrs. 
Shelby. 

Under the ministry of Rev. S. Cornelius, a 
house of worship was built at a cost of $1,200. 
During Rev. A. Handy's ministry who served 
as pastor from some time in 1859 to April, 
1 86 1, the church was received into the Elint 
River Association of Baptist Churches. (Au- 
gust, i860.) 

Rev. Franklin Johnson, then a young grad- 
uate from Hamilton, New York, was ordained 
as pastor sometime in 1861 and remained 
nearly two years. During his ministry a mis- 
sion was established in Birney's Hall, Bay City, 
and in July, 1863, 27 members of the Ports- 
mouth church were dismissed to form what is 
known today as the First Baptist Church of Bay 
City. Rev. Mr. Johnson soon afterward re- 
signed his charge to become pastor of the new 



church. The following ministers have served 
as pastors at stated periods from that time until 
the present hour : Re\-s. William W. Robson, 
R. E. Whittemore, E. W. Andrews, M. W. 
Holmes, C. H. Eraser, A. M. Allyn, J. C. 
Rooney, C. Carrol, E. Chesney, N. L. Freeman, 
H. A. Smith, C. E. Maxfield, E. S. Willson 
and Benjamin H. Thomas. 

In 1878 the old house which had become 
too small was enlarged and the name changed 
to the Fremont Avenue Baptist Church. In 
1882 the church was incorporated. 

A devastating fire swept through the South 
End in 1891 and the church which had never 
been so prosperous as then, was left without a 
meeting house. For a time they worshiped in 
the Sixth Ward School and in Marble Hall. On 
August 2, 1892, they decided to build at the 
corner of Broadway and 26th street and imme- 
diately proceeded to perfect plans for the same. 

August 17, 1892, a large body withdrew 
from the church to what is known as the South 
Baptist Church on Cass avenue. The corner- 
stone for the present handsome building was 
laid November 23, 1892, and the name was 
changed to the Broadway Baptist Church. 

The present property including parsonage 
is valued at $25,000. The church is an active, 
energetic body, organized into the following 
departments : Bible School, Ladies' Benevolent 
Society, Baptist Young People's Union, Junior 
Union, Men's League and Guards. It is espe- 
cially active in young people's work. 

First Baptist Church. — This church 
was organized at Birney Hall in July, 1863, by 
27 members who had withdrawn for that pur- 
pose from the society at Portsmouth (now 
known as the Broadway Baptist Church), the 
population of Lower Saginaw having so in- 
creased that they felt inclined to have a church 
of their own. At first services were held in the 
Court House and at Birney Hall until August, 



396 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



1874, when a neat chnrch edifice was built on 
Washington avenue. This was almost entirely 
the gift of James Fraser. 

The first pastor was Rev. Franklin John- 
son, who came with them from the Portsmouth 
society. He resigned in 1864 and was suc- 
ceeded by Rev. S. L. Holman, whose brief pas- 
torate was succeeded 1.iy the ministry of the la- 
mented Rev. D. B. Patterson, who labored very 
successfully until April, 1869, when failing 
health compelled him to leave the ministry. It 
was under his eloquent and genial ministrations 
that the church entered upon the prosperous ca- 
reer it has since known. Rev. J. A. Frost suc- 
ceeded Rev. Mr. Patterson, and he was followed 
by Rev. Z. Grenell, Jr., in 1873. 

The society outgrew the little church on 
Washington avenue, and in April, 1867, a com- 
mittee was appointed to consider the question 
of securing enlarged facilities for worship. 
They recommended building a new church. 
The old church property was worth about 
$7,000, and John I. Fraser who had recently 
died had bequeathed the society the sum of 
$8,000. It was finally decided to build a new 
house of worship, and the corner-stone was laid 
in the summer of 1869, and the new church 
dedicated February 9. 1873. A litigation, in 
which the title to the site was involved, delayed 
its construction. The total cost of the struc- 
ture was about $75,000. The extreme length 
of the building is 140 feet, and its greatest width 
72 feet. The audience room is 54 by 94 feet, 
finished in black walnut and ash. The windows 
are of stained glass arranged in highly orna- 
mental designs. An organ of nearly 1,400 
pipes, above and in the rear of the pulpit, adds 
greatly to the general good effect, both upon 
the eye and ear of the worshiper. This cost 
$6,000, and was the gift of Mrs. James Fraser. 
In the rear of the audience room are church 
parlors, kitchen, robing rooms and lecture and 



Sunday-school rooms. Its two spires rising, 
one to a height of 130 feet, the other to a height 
of 180 feet, are visible not only from all parts 
of the city, but attract the eye from a range of 
three or four miles beyond. The trustees who 
were charged with the responsibility of the work, 
were : Rev. D. B. Patterson and C. McDowell 
— both of whom died before its completion — 
H. A. Gustin, E. B. Denison, C. M. Averill, 
William Westover, W. H. Curry, Harry Gris- 
wold, D. Culver, Luther Westover and Samuel 
Drake. Capt. C. iNI. Averill had the supervision 
of the work. The bell was also the gift of Mrs. 
James Fraser, and came as a complete surprise 
to the church and community. Captain Averill 
succeeded in placing it in position during the 
hours of the night, and its joyful peals on the 
following morning, which was Sunday, filled 
the citizens with astonishment. 

The following is a list of the pastors since 
Rev. Z. Grenell, Jr., whose pastorate closed in 
June, 1879: Rev. J. W. Ford, February, 1880, 
to June, 1884: Rev. G. M. W. Carey, fall of 
1884 to the spring of 1885 : Rev. A. E. Waffle, 
1 885- 1 888; Rev. J. S. Holmes, D. D., 1888- 
93; Rev. S. Nelson Glover, 1894-95; Rev. H. 
A. Sumrell, 1895-99; 'i"'^^ since the latter date 
the church has been served by its present pas- 
tor, Rev. Julien Avery Herrick, Ph. D. 

Under the pastorate of Dr. Holmes about 
$7,000 was spent on repairs. Again in 1904 
about $4,000 was expended on repairs. The 
church has now an active working membership 
of 435. It has always been a very active church 
and the six Baptist churches now here are evi- 
dence of its missionary spirit. Since 1863 the 
church has raised, exclusive of the $84,000 
which the church and furnishings cost, about 
$150,000 and of this $25,000 has been spent on 
benevolences. 

In I\Iay, 1904, special exercises were held 
to commemorate its 40th anniversary. Fine 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



297 



music, many addresses and a banquet were the 
principal features. The opening services were 
conducted by Dr. Franklin Johnson, the first 
pastor of the church. 

First Baptist Church (West Side). — 
In 1874, William Currey, a member of the First 
Baptist Church of Bay City crossed the river 
and organized a Sunday-school, of which he 
became superintendent. For six months the in- 
fantile society met in an opera house, which has 
since been turned into a merchants' storehouse. 
Afterward it found temporary accommodation 
in the Protestant Episcopal Church, which was 
later remodeled into a public school building. 
This work was vigorously prosecuted for two 
years. Then the founder of the school was pre- 
vented from giving it his attention, and the 
school soon dwindled away. No further at- 
tempt was made toward establishing the Bap- 
tist denomination on the West Side until 1882. 
In September of that year, the Sunday-school 
missionary, E. D. Rundell, visited the town 
and found a number of Baptist families, and it 
was decided to organize a Bible school. This 
was done, and the first meetings were held in 
the old Presbyterian Church on Catherine 
street. As time went on the work prospered, 
and the question of having regular preaching 
services was discussed and its advisability de- 
termined upon. To this end a subscription was 
circulated and received the signatures of 17 
persons, and pledges aggregating $425. The 
agreement was that "preaching should com- 
mence on or before April first, A. D., 1883." 
The next natural step was the organization of a 
church, and this was effected on May 31, 1883, 
at the residence of Dr. ^larsh. There were 13 
charter members. The first pastor was Rev. D. 
T. Firor, who commenced his labors October 
10, 1883, the pulpit having been occupied dur- 
ing the time intervening between the organiza- 
tion and that date by candidates for the pas- 



torate. A council of recognition was called, 
and in April, 1884, the church in West Bay 
City was duly enrolled among the Baptist 
churches of the Saginaw Valley. 

All services of the church and Sunday- 
school were held in the old Presbyterian 
Church until November, 1883, when the hall 
in the Fisher Block was obtained. The desir- 
ability of having a permanent house of worship 
soon became apparent. Lots were secured on 
the corner of Ohio and Dean streets. Plans 
for a suitable building were adopted and the 
contract let on July 31, 1884. Owing to the 
limited means of the members, it was deemed 
desirable to finish only the lecture room. This 
room was available for services early in Febru- 
ary, 1885. The church continued to grow in 
numbers, and it was decided to complete the 
audience room as quickly as possible. This was 
accomplished June 28, 1885, on which date the 
church was dedicated with appropriate exer- 
cises. The total cost of the lots, buildings, fur- 
nishings, etc., was $8,175.65. The property is 
now valued at $10,000. 

Rev. Mr. Firor's pastorate came to an end 
in October, 1886, and his successor. Rev. B. 
Morley, commenced his labors on November 
loth of the same year. He remained with the 
church two years and seven months. In Sep- 
tember, i88g, a call was extended to Rev. C. H. 
Irving which was accepted, and he commenced 
his pastorate at once. During the summer of 
1890, $1,000 was expended in repairs on the 
church, and by October of that year this sum. 
together with the debt of $2,200, had been paid, 
leaving the society free from debt. Rev. ^Ir. 
Irving continued with the church until July 30, 
1902. His successor. Rev. George D. Harger, 
began his labors in December and continued 
with the church until February, 1905. The 
church at present is without a pastor. The 
chiu'ch has 246 members; there is an average 



298 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



attendance at the Sunday-school of over 200. 

About 1886 a mission was started in 
Brooks. The work was in charge of W. N. 
Fletcher, who afterwards became pastor of the 
Patterson ^Memorial Baptist Church, of Bay 
City. The work has prospered. 

Patterson Memori.^l B.\ptist Church. 
— During his pastorate over the First Baptist 
Church of Bay City, Rev. D. B. Patterson es- 
tablished a mission Sunday-school in the north 
part of the city. Members of his church pur- 
chased land on VanBuren street between North 
Johnson and Shearer streets, and erected a small 
building in which the school was held. The of- 
ficers of the school and the teachers came from 
the church, arid as a result of their earnest en- 
deavors the work was prospered until the school 
had outgrown the capacity of their building. 
Then the structure was set farther back on the 
Jot and an addition was built on in front. This 
was about 1884. The work continued to at- 
tract the residents of the neighborhood, and 
-occasionally other services were held until 1892, 
when it seemed desirable to organize a church. 
The name Patterson Memorial Baptist Church 
was adopted to perpetuate and honor the mem- 
ory of the founder of the mission, to whose in- 
defatigable labors the Baptists of Bay City are 
so greatly indebted. An earnest Christian, W. 
N. Fletcher, of West Bay City, became pastor 
of the church, and a year later was ordained 
to the ministry. In 1901 he went to another 
field of labor, and the church remained without 
a pastor for seven months. Then Rev. Will- 
iam P. Lovett was called from Rochester, New 
York, where he had just completed a course in 
theology. He served the church until April i, 
1905. when he accepted a call to a church in 
•Grand Rapids. In 1896 the house of worship 
was moved from the place where the church 
was founded to its present site and was remod- 
■eled. so that there is now a commodious audi- 



torium. At present there are about 70 mem- 
bers, the membership having been considerably 
depleted in constituting the First Baptist Church 
at Essexville. 

First B.\ptist Church (Essexville). — 
Soon after becoming pastor of the Patterson 
Memorial Baptist Church, Rev. W. N. Fletcher 
started a mission Sunday-school in Essexville. 
At first the school was held in a rented room, 
and these quarters were occupied until 1901, 
when two lots of land at the corner of Dunbar 
and Langstaff streets were purchased, and a 
small brick church edifice was erected. At 
present the church has about 80 members. They 
have never had a settled pastor, but join witli 
the Patterson Memorial Baptist Church in sup- 
porting a minister, who divides his time evenly 
between them. 

South B.\ptist Church. — After the de- 
struction of the Broadway Baptist Church by 
the great fire which swept the southern portion 
of the city, a number of its members deemed it 
desirable to locate a church farther south. Ac- 
cordingly on September i, 1892, the South Bap- 
tist Church was organized with 17 charter 
members, who had withdrawn from the Broad- 
way Baptist Church for that purpose. At first 
services were held in Moran Hall, at the corner 
of what is now Cass avenue and Harrison 
street. On ^March i, 1893. Rev. J. E. Gregory 
was called to become their first pastor. About 
this time land was purchased on Cass avenue at 
the foot of Marsac street, and the erection of 
their present house of worship was begun. The 
church building was not completed until the 
fall of 1904, although services had been held 
in a portion of the edifice for some time prior 
to this. On Christmas Day. 1904, the first 
services were held in the completed church amid 
general rejoicing on the part of the members. 

During the first six months of 1895, Allan 
McEwan of Bav Citv, served the church as 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



299. 



pastor without remuneration. After that the 
church was without a pastor until the spring 
of 1896, the pulpit in the meantime being sup- 
pUed by the different Baptist clergj-men of Bay 
City. On May 6, 1896, Rev. H. E. McGrath 
was caUed for six months. He remained until 
April I, 1897, and the church was again with- 
out a pastor until August, 1897, when Rev. 
George \V. Bates commenced his labors here. 
During all the time the church has been without 
a settled pastor, at least one service has been 
held each Sunday. Rev. Mr. Bates remained 
with the church until October 29, 1899. His 
successor was Rev. William P. Squire, who was 
called the following September and served the 
church until August, 1900. The next pastor 
was Rev. Joseph Fox, who received his call the 
following October, and remained with the 
church until the spring of 1902. During the 
following months the members of the church 
became scattered and, becoming discouraged in 
the struggle to maintain an organization with 
so few members, had instructed the trustees to 
sell the property. It was then that Daniel H. 
Trombley, one of the charter members who had 
been most influential in organizing the church, 
but, who in the meantime had joined a church on 
the West Side, came back and rallied the mem- 
bers together, and by a vast amount of personal 
work brought about a reorganization. To him 
is due great credit for the noble work he has 
done. From that time the church began to 
prosper, and on March 22, 1904, the present 
pastor, Rev. F. W. Kamm, commenced his la- 
bors. The church was dedicated on February 
12, 1905. At present there are about 40 mem- 
bers of the church. About 170 scholars are 
enrolled in the Sunday-school, which has an 
average attendance of 135. 

Swedish Baptist Church (West Side). 
— This society was organized by 15 Swedish 
Baptists in the fall of 1898. The following 



year they purchased a private dwelling on the 
corner of Dean and Jenny streets and remod- 
eled it into a little meeting house. This served 
the church until 1904 when it was enlarged to 
its present size, giving it a seating capacity for 
about 200 people. The property is worth about 
$1,500. The church received its first minis- 
trations from Rogiiar Alender, a theological 
student, who came to them soon after the or- 
ganization of the society and remained three 
months. He was followed by another student, 
John Erickson, who came in the spring of 1899 
and remained with the church until the opening 
of the fall term in the theological seminary. 
After he went away, prayer meetings were held 
and the Sunday-school was maintained, but the 
little church remained without regular preach- 
ing services until Rev. Peter O. Ekstrom took 
charge in the summer of 1903. He was a mis- 
sionary and gave only half his time to the 
church. Since he went away, the last of De- 
cember, 1904, the church has again been with- 
out a pastor. 

K.A.WKAWLIN Baptist Church. — This is 
the outgrowth of a mission started by the First 
Baptist Church of West Bay City a few years 
ago. A church building has been erected on an 
elegant site and fully paid for. The property 
is valued at $2,000. The present membership 
of the churcli is 34. Rev. Brent Harding be- 
came pastor in 1901, and still continues a suc- 
cessful work in that section. 

congregational churches. 

First Congregational Church. — The 
first meeting in the interests of a Congregational 
Church in Bay City was held in Good Temp- 
lars' Hall, June 13, 1875. R^^'- J- ^- Dawson 
preached morning and evening. On the 29th 
of June a meeting was held at the residence of 
F. H. Blackman to consider the practicability 



^oo 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



of organizing a Congregational Church and so- 
ciety. It was decided to effect such an organ- 
ization and articles of association were adopted 
and officers were elected. 

Regular Sabbath services were held in Good 
Templars' Hall for a month, after which the use 
of the Court House was procured, where, on 
the 25th of July, 1875, the church was organ- 
ized in due form. 

Twenty-five members composed the new- 
church, five of whom united on profession of 
faith, and 20 by letters from other churches. 
On the following Sabbath a Sunday-school was 
organized under very encouraging auspices. 
Church prayer meetings were also appointed, 
being held from house to house. In August, 
Rev. S. P. Barker, of Ionia, was engaged tem- 
porarily as pastor, and at the end of three 
months his resignation was accepted. 

In October the trustees of the German Lu- 
theran Church kindly proffered the use of their 
house of worship on Sabbaths for one preach- 
ing service, and also for Sunday-school. Short- 
ly afterwards the Good Templars' Hall was 
again secured where the regular church serv- 
ices were held until the new house of worship 
on the corner of Sixth and Van Buren streets 
was finished. From November, 1875, until 
February, 1876, the pulpit was supplied tempo- 
rarily, much of the time by Dr. Joseph Hooper, 
whose ministrations were kindly given, and 
were received with much gratitude. His sud- 
den illness and death, which occurred Febru- 
ary 27, 1876, terminated a useful and devoted 
life. 

A movement was made immediately after 
the organization of the chiirch and society to- 
ward the erection of a house of worship. 
Through the persevering efforts of the board 
of trustees, and the liberality of memljers and 
friends, the building committee were enabled to 
begin the work December i, 1875. The church 



edifice was completed and dedicated April 20, 
1876. 

About the first of February. 1876, the 
church and society extended a call to Rev. J. 
Homer Parker to become their pastor. The 
call was accepted, and Rev. ^Ir. Parker entered 
upon his ministrations IMarch 12, 1876. At the 
expiration of a year he was regularly installed. 

On June 28, 1879, Rev. Mr. Parker was 
compelled to tender his resignation on account 
of ill health. A unanimous call was extended 
to Rev. J. G. Leavitt, of New Gloucester, 
IMaine, who accepted the same and commenced 
his pastorate under very favorable auspices, 
December 7, 1879. Failing health, however, 
compelled him to tender his resignation in Oc- 
tober, 1880, and the church was again without 
a pastor. An invitation to the pastorate was 
given to Rev. W. W". Lyle, of Duxbury, Mass- 
achusetts, which was accepted, and on January 
2, 1881, he commenced his labors, which proved 
very successful. At that time the membership 
was 200. In 1 89 1 he was succeeded by the 
present pastor. Rev. Charles T. Patchell. The 
church has been out of debt for five or six years 
and is active and growing. 

CoxGREG.\TioxAL Church ( EsscxviUe) . 
— In April, 1879. Rev. John B. Dawson came 
to Essexville at the request of the Genesee As- 
sociation to see what the possibilities were for 
establishing a Congregational Church. He 
visited among the people for a month, during 
which time he held meetings in Hudson Hall. 
On May 6th of that year a church was organ- 
ized with 30 charter members, and the follow- 
ing week the Sunday-school was established. 
The first Sunday of the following August the 
church commenced holding meetings in what 
is now K. O. T. M. Hall, and worshiped there 
for two years and a half. In 1881 they com- 
menced building their present house of worship, 
and held the first meeting there in February, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



301 



1883. The edifice was dedicated the first of the 
following June, and at that time the church 
was out of debt. Rev. J\Ir. Dawson was called 
as pastor as soon as the church was organized. 
After six years of service, he was compelled to 
resign and to retire from the ministry on ac- 
count of failing health, although he has 
preached occasionally since that time. Rev. W. 
B. King was called in the early summer of 1S85, 
and remained with the church five years. Then 
Rev. Mr. Scott was engaged to supply the pul- 
pit for the next six months, and was succeeded 
in 1891 by Rev. E. M. Counsellor who minis- 
tered to the congregation for two years. At 
the close of his pastorate, the mills, in which 
most of the male members of the church were 
employed, were destroyed by fire, and the 
church remained without a pastor for about a 
year and a half, the members feeling that they 
could not assume the burden of maintaining a 
minister. In 1895, Rev. J. H. Haller, who had 
charge of the city mission, began supplying the 
pulpit on Sunday mornings, and continued his 
labors for a year. Then Rev. Charles T. Pat- 
chell preached to the congregation on Sunday 
evenings for a year, and for the next 1 2 months 
the church was ministered to by Rev. j\Ir. 
Woodruff, a retired clerg\-man of Saginaw. 
From the close of his labors until November, 
190 1, the church was again without a pastor. 
At that time Rev. Charles W. Jones, of Zanes- 
ville, Ohio, was called. He was succeeded after 
21 months by Rev. O. A. Alexander, who 
stayed with the church only 10 months. In, 
November, 1904, Rev. R. S. Hartill was called 
from Sprague, Canada. The present member- 
ship of the church is 51. 

EVANGELICAL CHURCHES. 

ZioN Evangelical Church. — In 1878 
this church was organized. Among the original 



trustees were Herman ]\Ieisel, Henry Meisel, 
August JMeisel, Max Hildebrand and Fred 
Koch. x"\t first a small church building was 
erected, but as the society flourished it was 
found necessary to build the house of worship 
on Iklonroe street, which they are now using. 
The old church was removed to the rear of the 
lot, where it is used as a chapel and for school 
purposes. The church had 26 charter members. 
The first pastor was Rev. F. Hamp, who re- 
mained about two years. The next three pas- 
tors. Revs. Frederick Schweitzer, Frederick 
Mueller and George Haller, each served the 
church three years. Then Rev. Frederick 
Klump had charge for two years, and was fol- 
lowed by Rev. j\Ir. Krueger, who was pastor 
for three years. This brings us to 1892, when 
a portion of the society withdrew from the de- 
nomination to form the Salem United Evan- 
gelical Church. 

Soon after this event, a meeting was called 
in a hall on Washington avenue to organize a 
new society. Rev. N. Wunderlich was chair- 
man of this meeting and Rev. John Riebel its 
secretary. At this meeting about 30 people re- 
united with the church of the Evangelical Asso- 
ciation. The society that had withdrawn re- 
fused to give up the church property for a num- 
ber of years. In 1898, however, a decision of 
the courts gave the church to its present own- 
ers. The new society has now about 50 mem- 
bers. Its property is valued at $8,400. The 
pastors have been Revs. John Riebel, J. Ham- 
mel, N. Wunderlich, A. Halmhuber, J. M. Bitt- 
ner and W. AI. Sippel, who is the present pas- 
tor. The Sunday-school services are held 
in English. The morning services are in 
German and the evening services are in 
English. 

Salem United Evangelical Church is 
the name that was chosen by the society that 
withdrew from the Evangelical Association in 



302 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



1892. They worshiped in what is now Zion 
EvangeHcal Church until 1898, when they were 
compelled by the courts to abandon the prop- 
erty, and at that time built their present church 
and parsonage at a cost of $10,000. The prop- 
erty is located at the corner of Madison avenue 
and loth street. 

Their pastors, each of whom has served the 
church the prescribed limit of four years, have 
been Revs. Henry Schneider, Samuel Mueller 
and A. Lutz, whose pastorate expired in 1905. 
and who was succeeded by the present pastor. 
Rev. C. M. Kaufman. The present member- 
ship is 126. 

The First Universalist Society was 
organized in 1864 under the labors of Rev. 
William Tompkins, who preached in Bay City 
every alternate Sunday for six months of that 
year. At first he had called the Universalists 
of Bay City together and developed their 
strength ; but at the close of his engagement it 
was thought the interest was not sufficient to 
warrant the continuance of his labors. Thus 
matters rested until die summer of 1865, when 
Rev. Z. Cook visited the city and preached to 
the congregation every Sunday for a month, as 
a candidate for settlement. The interest mani- 
fested did not seem sufficient to justify his en- 
gagement, and nothing more was done until 
the early spring of 1866, when Rev. C. P. Nash 
came to Bay City, seeking a settlement. He 
was assured beforehand that circumstances did 
not favor the settlement of any pastor over the 
society, but so great and unexpected was the 
interest shown upon his first visit that he was 
requested to renew it, and in the meantime a 
subscription was started to secure his services. 
The necessary amount was pledged, and on 
the first Sunday in April he entered upon the 
discharge of his duties as pastor. 

The society, however, from having been so 
long without regular meetings, had well-nigh 



dissolved; and hence a meeting was called on 
April 10, 1866, at which it was legally reor- 
ganized, and its organization entered upon the 
records of the county according to law. The 
necessity of a church building being apparent 
to all, in June the pastor commenced circulating 
a subscription to raise the necessary funds. 
Work on the building was commenced in Octo- 
ber, and it was dedicated on the first Sunday in 
January, 1867. Owing to financial troubles, 
meetings were suspended from January, 1868, 
to the following May, when an engagement 
was entered into for preaching half the time. 
The Sunday-school, however, did not suffer in- 
terruption. After a time, however, the society 
recuperated and enjoyed a more prosperous 
condition. In 1877 ^^'^^ building was destroyed 
by fire, and the lot was exchanged for one on 
the corner of Seventh street and Madison ave- 
nue, where the following year a church edifice 
was completed. The pastor at that time was 
Rev. Amos Crum, who remained with the so- 
ciety for several years. After he went away 
the pulpit was filled by a number of supplies, 
none of whom remained for any considerable 
length of time. The next settled pastor was 
Rev. S. Crane, who came in 1882. He remained, 
about one and a half years, and then the pulpit 
was vacant for a short time until Rev. S. H. 
Roblin took charge. He was followed by Rev.' 
Frank J. Chase, who subsequently seceded from 
the denomination, and after that the pulpit was 
supplied by different clergymen of the Univer- 
salist denomination until Rev. Charles E. 
Tucker came to the church about 1893. The 
church building was destroyed by fire on March 
10, 1895, Mr. Tucker at that time being away 
on a tour of the Holy Land. Soon after this 
second visitation by fire the pastorate was ter- 
minated. For about a year the society had no 
regular meeting place, and few meetings were 
held. Then Rev. Thomas Illman was engaged. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



303 



and services were held in the Ridotto. About 
this time a building lot was secured on Center 
avenue at the corner of Sherman street, and tha 
foundation for a new house of worship was 
laid. Rev. Mr. Illman's pastorate covered a 
period of two and one-half years. The pulpit 
again becoming vacant, services were held in- 
termittently until Rev. George B. Stocking was 
secured as pastor. He remained with the 
church about a year and a half. Since his resig- 
nation in June, 1904, no regular meetings have 
been held, the society being kept alive by the 
ladies, who hold meetings weekly from house 
to house among the members. There are now 
only about 40 or 50 families connected with the 
society, many former members ha\ing become 
identified with other churches in the city. Ow- 
ing to the weakened condition of the society, it 
appears doubtful if the new church on Center 
avenue will be completed in the immediate fu- 
ture. 

Church of Christ (Disciples). This 
West Side church was organized about eight 
years ago, with six charter members. The first 
meeting was held at the house of John Law. 
Services were afterward conducted in the houses 
of the various members until they came into 
possession of their present house of worship. 
This was previously owned by the Swedish Dis- 
ciples' Church under the leadership of Rev. Mr. 
Hollengrin, who constructed the building with 
his own hands. The property is now valued at 
$1,500. The present membership of the church 
is 36. The following is a list of the pastors to 
date: Revs. I. K. Law, September, 1897, to 
August, 1899; W. R. Seytone, November, 
1899, to February, 1900; C. W. F. Daniels, 
May 6, 1900, to September 9. 1900; W. P. 
Squires, October 14, 1900, to February 28, 
1 901 ; A. E. Zelier, June 7. 1 901, to February 
19, 1905 ; and S. W. Pearcy, the present pastor, 
who took charge February 19, 1905. 

17 



SWEDISH FREE MISSION CHURCH. 

About 1885, S. A. Sanbeck began holding 
praj'er meetings from house to house among 
Swedish Christians in West Bay City. These 
meetings were kept up until 1891. During 
these years Swedish missionaries made occas- 
ional visits, and at such times meetings were 
lield in various halls. In 1891 the present 
church society was organized, and the follow- 
ing year their house of worship was erected on 
DeWitt street between Jenny and Thomas 
streets. It seats about 125 people and is valued 
at about $1,000. The church has about 60 
members. Their present pastor. Rev. Alberts 
Johnson, came in December, 1904. 

SEVENTH D..\Y .\DVENTIST. 

In the summer of 1889, Frank Armstrong 
began holding Sabbath-school on the ^^^est Side 
in the home of Mrs. J. B. Stewart. Soon after 
that he began holding services in his own house. 
During the winter of 1889, Elder D. H. Lam- 
son came here, and a hall was rented and gen- 
eral church services held, until the spring of 
1890. The interest manifested did not seem 
sufificient to justify him in staying, but after 
he went away the Sabbath-school and prayer 
meetings were continued. Later the meetings 
were removed to Bay City and held for a time 
in the old Lutheran Church at the corner of 
Sixth street and Madison avenue. On Feb- 
ruary I, 1890, the church was organized with 
17 members. Elder Burrill moved his family 
here in the spring and remained with the church 
through the summer. Elder Basney came in 
the fall of 1890, and served the society until 
1895. Their present house of worship on 
South Dean street was completed in 1895, '^"'^ 
dedicated on May 12th of that year. The edi- 
fice is valued at about $1,500 and seats about 



304 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



150 people. The church now has 61 members. 
Their next pastor was Elder Justus Lamson, 
who had charge of the services about two years. 
Their next pastor, Elder Conrad Weber, went 
away in 1901, and then they were without a 
pastor for quite a while. Their present pastor. 
Elder A. R. Sanborn, came in February, 1902. 
In the fall of 1902, the church opened a paro- 
chial school in the church. There are now nine 
children in the school. The first teacher was 
May Sanborn who had charge of the school for 
one year. Since that time the present teacher, 
Louise Krohn, has been in charge. 

The Christian Assembly, whose taber- 
nacle is located at the corner of Michigan and 
Dean streets, on the West Side, was founded 
by Elder Walter Sims in 1879. In the fall of 
1879 he came to Bay City on a business trip. 
One evening with a friend he went to hear a 
temperance address in Rouech Hall ; the speaker 
did not put in an appearance, and Elder Sims 
was requested to address the assembled audi- 
ence. Up to this time it had always been his 
custom to preach the Gospel as opportunity of- 
fered, and so he gladly took advantage of the 
occasion to deliver a stirring Gospel address, 
and by request continued preaching on subse- 
quent evenings. These are the peculiar circum- 
stances which led to the establishing of this 
unique assembly which now numbers between 
three and four hundred members, who claim to 
gather in accordance with the customs of the 
Christian assemblies in the days of the Apos- 
tles, without a creed other than the entire Bible. 
After a time the meetings were transferred to 
West Bay City and held in the old St. Paul's 
Protestant Episcopal Church. Services were 
conducted in this building until 1880 when 
they began holding meetings in a building of 
their own, which was located opposite their 
present site. The building was 126 by 76 feet 
and cost about $2,000. In 1881 a large acad- 



emy building was added to the church property 
at a cost of $3,000. The academy was con- 
ducted by Elder Sims and its curriculum in- 
cluded college preparatory courses, normal 
courses for teachers, commercial courses and 
other studies which might be selected by the 
student. The school prospered until 1892, 
when the entire property was destroyed by fire. 
For a time, after that misfortune, services 
were conducted in the chapel now used by the 
Church of Christ. In the meantime the Sal- 
vation Army barracks were purchased, remod- 
eled inside and refitted so that it would seat 
more than 700 people. Including all improve- 
ments, it has cost up to this time between $5,000 
and $6,000. Articles of incorporation as The 
Christian Assembly were executed February 12, 
1902. 

hebrew congregations. 

Anshei Chesed Hebrew Reform Con- 
gregation was organized in September, 1878. 
Services were held in a lodge room on Water 
street until 1884 when they purchased their 
present temple on Adams street from a Ger- 
man Lutheran society, which had previously 
used it as a house of worship. Originally the 
congregation numbered about 25 male, paying 
members, but as the number of Jewish famil- 
ies in the city increased the membership in- 
creased. In 1884 the congregation divided on 
questions regarding the manner of conducting 
the services, so that now the male paying mem- 
bership is only what is was at the beginning. 
There are about 50 members of the congrega- 
tion. Dr. \\'olff Landau was the first rabbi, 
and served the congregation until his death, 
August 29, 1903. He was succeeded after a 
few months by Dr. F. \\'. Jesselson. who is still 
in charge. He resides at Grand Rapids. The 
society is free from debt. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



305 



Shaary Zedek Coxgregatiox. — In 1884 
about 12 families who believed in adhering to 
the old forms and methods of conducting He- 
brew worship withdrew from the Anshei 
Chesed Reform Hebrew Congregation. Their 
first meetings were held in a hall on Center 
avenue. They continued there seven or eight 
years, and then moved into their present syna- 
gogue, which was built in 1S89. The edifice 
will seat about 500 people. They have 45 vot- 
ing members, while the congregation numbers 
about 500 souls. In 1904 a private residence 
adjoining the synagogue was purchased, and is 
to be converted into a Hebrew free school. This 
property is worth about $1,000. The value of 
the synagogue, including furnishings, is at 
least $4,000. 

In 1882 Rabbi Samuel Levine came to the 
congregation. He remained about three years 
and was followed by Rabbi Joseph Bernstein, 
who stayed two years. Next came Rabbi Jo- 
seph Taub, who served the congregation about 
six years. His successor was Rabbi L. Frisch, 
and after him Rabbi A. Rosenthal was here 
three years until 1903. when Rabbi Joseph 
Taub returned to the congregation and has re- 
mained since that time. 

YOUXG MEX'S CHRISTIAX ASSOCIATION. 

The association was organized June 19, 
1885, with D. C. Smalley as president and W. 
F. Sunley as general secretary. Mr. Smalley 
served the association two years. Mr. Sunley, 
after a much appreciated work, resigned Octo- 
ber I, 1886. Mr. Baker acted as general secre- 
tary until September i, 1887, when Mr. Hoag 
took charge. He was succeeded on May i, 
1888, by F. Klumpf. and at the same time Hon. 
F. W. Wheeler became president. 

During the incumbency of Mr. Klumpf, the 
association received from the philanthropist. 



Alexander Folsom, $20,000 for a building and 
$10,000 as a library fund. With the money 
designated for that purpose the association pur- 
chased the building it now occupies on Adams 
street, which was originally known as the Wal- 
ton Block and remodeled it for its present uses. 
Mr. Klumpf resigned March 30, 1890, and 
was succeeded by Mr. Black. Then followed a 
number of general secretaries who served one 
or two years each. In 1S98 the present general 
secretary, Charles A. Day, began his work. He 
had come here the previous year as physical di- 
rector, and still continues to look after both 
departments of the association's work. 

YOUXG women's CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION. 

The association was organized in May, 
1891, and incorporated the following Decem- 
ber. The aim of the work has been to promote 
the interest of young women in spiritual, edu- 
cational, physical and social work. At first 
meetings were held in the G. A. R. Hall : later, 
rooms were secured in the old library building ; 
from there the association removed to a private 
house on Washnigton avenue and still later to 
a dwelling house on Madison avenue. For the 
past five years the association has occupied 
quarters in the Root Block on Center avenue. 
There are six rooms, — office, assembly room, 
library, rest room, dining room and kitchen. 
Following is a list of the secretaries, each of 
whom held office about a year : Miss Humph- 
rey, I\Iiss Obernauer. Miss Alice Pierce, Miss 
Belle Lemon, Miss Carey. Miss Strong. Miss 
Mary Angevine and Miss Myrtle B. Mills, who 
took' charge as general secretary in 1904 and is 
still in office. Of these. Misses Alice Pierce 
and Belle Lemon were volunteer workers of the 
local association. 

In addition to the religious meetings, regu- 
lar classes are held in the common English 



3o6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



branches and in drawing, plain sewing, shirt- 
waist making, milhnery, cooking and a limited 
amount of gymnasium work. All the best mag- 
azines are to be found on the library table, and 
on the shelves many standard works of litera- 
ture and the best of the late books, of which the 
members have free use. During the past year 
9,105 lunches were served. The total attend- 
ance at the rooms, including classes. Gospel 
meetings and calls, was 21,833. The total mem- 
bership is now 500. The work is supported by 
memberships and subscriptions. 

HOSPIT.^LS. 

JMercy Hospital. The stately structure 
standing on the corner of 15th and Howard 
streets, is one of Bay City's best testimonials 
that its citizens, in the hurry and bustle of the 
complex life of the present -day, have not for- 
gotten that "sweet quality of mercy" which 
finds expression in tender, solicitous care for the 
weak, sick and helpless. 

Mercy Hospital had its beginning five years 
ago, being established first in the old Nathan 
B. Bradley private residence, on the present 
site. It is entirely under the management of 
that noble body of Christian woman known as 
the Sisters of Mercy, Sister Hilda being then, 
as now, the superior. Michigan, from 1668 
when Father Marquette, that great Catholic 
missionary, founded the first settlement, has 
been indebted to the same religious body for 
much of its educational and religious develop- 
ment as well as for the carrying on of some of 
its greatest charities. With the zeal which has 
always characterized the pioneers in establish- 
ing their schools and benevolent institutions, 
Sister Hilda, ably seconded by her assistants, 
so presented the claims of the proposed hospital, 
to the business men of Bay City, that a fund of 
$7,500 was rapidly raised and the present 



property was purchased, so that when the hos- 
pital was opened, on September 26, 1900, it 
was entirely free from indebtedness. 

In 1905 an annex was added to the original 
structure, a brick building, three stories and 
basement, making the accommodations larger 
and of more benefit to the public. Through 
private contributions and the interest taken in 
the work of the hospital by many citizens of 
various denominations, as well as the income 
derived from those patients able to remunerate 
generously for their care, the whole building 
has been thoroughly equipped with e\-ery mod- 
ern convenience and appliance and is recognized 
as the leading private hospital in the city. Many 
of its 20 private rooms have been furnished by 
private individuals or societies. It is, however, 
just what its name implies, — a refuge for the 
sick who have no means to procure medical at- 
tention. These are never turned away, but the 
good Sisters take them in, shelter and cure them 
and let them pass out again healed in body and 
refreshed in spirit. The charity patients aver- 
age about 10 a year, the accommodations be- 
ing for 35 patients. The hospital has a private 
ambulance. Mercy Hospital keeps 10 nurses 
for its work and from its training school has 
graduated' 1 2 nurses, making no charge for tui- 
tion. Another admirable department of its 
work is the finding of homes for waifs. These 
are placed where conditions promise that they 
will be carefully reared in Christian households. 

While this hospital is under the care of the 
Sisters of Mercy, it has the full sympathy and 
support of all the religious creeds of the city, 
for its work is entirely unsectarian and of so 
beneficent a character that its great usefulness 
can not be ranked too high. 

Lewis Hospital. — Dr. LeRoy Lewis, 
while looking for a suitable location for a hos- 
pital, came in the latter "eighties" to Bay City, 
and there being at that time no hospital in either 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



307 



of the cities, he was encouraged by a number of 
leading citizens to decide upon Bay City as the 
scene of his future labors. He returned to his 
home in New York State to close up his busi- 
ness affairs there. This required a little longer 
time than he had anticipated, and when, in Sep- 
tember, 1900, he arrived in Bay City, he dis- 
covered that Mercy Hospital had been estab- 
lished. He was not discouraged by this, how- 
ever, as he felt there was room here for t\^■o 
such institutions, and it was his hope in time to 
make his hospital a public, if not a municipal 
institution. He secured what was at that time 
one of the most pretentious private dwellings in 
Bay City, erected by the late George Lewis at a 
cost of many thousands of dollars. Dr. Lewis 
furnished this home with every necessary ap- 
pliance of the most modern and approved type 
for performing surgical operations and every 
convenience for the care of the sick and con- 
valescent, and on November 16, 1900, the in- 
stitution, which had cost Dr. Lewis $10,000, 
■was formally opened to the public. 

The building is situated on a beautiful cor- 
ner lot, with ample grounds and an abundance 
of sunlight and air. Had the structure been 
erected especially for a hospital, it would not 
be more appropriate. The building contains 
spacious halls, drawing rooms and library, all 
elegantly furnished, and these cheerful places 
are at the disposal of convalescents. The din- 
ing room, kitchen, pantry and other domestic 
appointments are those of an elegant home. On 
the second floor are two wards, rooms for pri- 
vate patients, bath rooms and operating rooms. 
The third floor has a ward sufficiently large to 
accommodate 25 beds, and there is a maternity 
department which is complete in every detail. 
The building is heated by steam, and lighted 
by its own electric light plant. Dr. Lewis 
brought the first ambulance to Bay City, and 
this is at the disposal of any physician. 



At the time the hospital was established, 
there were scarcely any trained nurses in Bay 
City, and it became apparent at once that in 
order to meet the demand for skilled nurses for 
the hospital and for the public, it would be 
necessary to establish a school. Accordingly^ 
on July 25, 1901, the auxiliary board of the 
Nurse Association of Lewis Hospital was in- 
corporated. In addition to furnishing training 
for nurses, the association was formed for 
charitable work in furnishing attendance for 
and in nursing persons ill or helpless from acci- 
dents, who are unable to provide the heavy costs 
entailed by such services. This association 
controls the charity ward of the hospital and 
all funds given for the care of free patients. 
Below we give a list of the persons composing 
the board of directors, the ofiicers of which con- 
stitute the board of trustees of the institution : 
Oflicers and trustees, — president, Mrs. May 
Stocking Knaggs; ist vice-president, Mrs. Min- 
nie E. Ruelle; 2nd vice-president, Mrs. W. J. 
Daniels; secretary, Mrs. Fred Asman; treas- 
urer, Mrs. Mae Kenney Lewis. Directors : 
Mrs. E. B. Foss, Mrs. Theodore F. Shepard, 
Mrs. Mae Kenney Lewis, Mrs. Robert Beutel, 
-Mrs. S. A. Baldwin, Mrs. M. S. Bird. Mrs. 
Anna Foote, DeVere Hall, LeRoy Lewis. John 
Daniels, George N. Ewell, Frank Walter, A. 
W. Herrick, Arthur Boynton and Arthur 
Strong. At the beginning of each year a med- 
ical staff is formed, comprising four physicians 
and four surgeons, each of whom serves three 
months of the ensuing year. Besides giving 
lectures to nurses, this staff cares for the pa- 
tients in the charity ward. 

Up to this time, all the profit from the care 
of private patients has been expended in main- 
taining the public or free ward. Of the money 
spent in this way, Dr. Lewis has given $4,921.- 
96 and the ladies of the directorate have pro- 
vided $1,258.38. This department has cared 



3oS 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



for 114 patients, many of them remaining for 
long periods of time — one patient has been un- 
der treatment for a year. This charity work 
had grown to a point where Dr. Lewis felt he 
could no longer assume the financial burden of 
bearing nearly four-fifths of the expense it in- 
volved from his private purse, so early in 1905 
he made an appeal to the public-spirited citizens 
of Bay City to maintain the free ward as a pub- 
lic philanthropy, to be owned and supported by 
the general public, thus making the Lewis Hos- 
pital, in the strict sense of the term, the only 
public hospital in Bay City. 

CHARITIES. 

Old Ladies' Home. — The Associated 
Charities, a band of noble-hearted women, who 
have time and energy- to aid those in sor- 
row and distress, was first organized by the 
ladies of Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church 
in 1886. Led by Mrs. Samuel G. J\I. Gates 
and Mrs. Nathan B. Bradley, they raised $3,- 
000 to purchase the property since enlarged 
and improved, located on Monroe street and 
Fourth avenue, — a spacious, two-story frame 
building, with stone foundation and basement. 
Nearly $10,000 has been collected and spent 
for the laudable purposes of this home in the 
last 18 years, during 13 years of which time 
Mrs. Gates has been the earnest, able and inde- 
fatigable president of this worthy association. 
Ill health compelled her to resign in 1899, Mrs. 
Selwyn Eddy assuming the responsibilities of 
the executive office of the association for more 
than three years, until ill health also compelled 
her retirement. For the last three years Mrs. 
Frank Shearer has presided with commendable 
devotion over the destinies of Bay City's two 
most worthy institutions of sweet charity. The 
Old Ladies' Home is in the nature of a private 
boarding house, all the inmates contributing 



something toward the maintenance of the 
rooms, of which the home has 25 furnished 
with all the comforts, but none of the luxuries, 
of the modern home. The inmates are there 
for life, enjoying the eventide of their earthly 
journey in congenial and quiet surroundings, 
free from care and assured of kindly attendance 
to the last. In 1905, 2y inmates are enrolled. 
]\Iiss Josephine Albertson is the matron, with 
two domestics and a janitor. The Asso- 
ciated Charities are having their annual rum- 
mage sale April 24-29, 1905, the proceeds of 
which go into their charity fund, constituting 
each year a more liberal and well-earned sum. 
Children's Home. — Amid a grove of 
giant forest trees, fronting on Columbus ave- 
nue, one of Bay City's prettiest and broadest 
thoroughfares, stands the pride of the city's 
charities, — the handsome, three-story brick 
structure, whose roof covers the homeless waifs 
of the community. After the Associated Char- 
ities had firmly established the Old Ladies' 
Home, they turned their attention to the poor 
little chilren, many of whom are each year left 
motherless and homeless, even in this well- 
regulated community. The first few years the 
children were kept at the Old Ladies' Home, 
but this was found inexpedient, and a separate 
home was established on Johnson street. After 
some years of hard work, without commensu- 
rate results, the association concluded to drop 
the more burdensome care of the little waifs. 
Mrs. Samuel G. M. Gates, however, ne\er lost 
faith in the final success of this much needed 
home for children, so with the aid of Mrs. 
iSIurray, who for nine years was the devoted 
matron of this home, and a few others, she 
fitted up one of her houses on loth street for 
the children, where for nearly eight years they 
received the best of care, though the accom- 
modations necessarily limited the number that 
could be taken. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



309 



In 1901 the ladies made another determined 
effort to secure a permanent and sufficient home 
for these poor children, and a number of busi- 
ness men, headed by A. E. Bousfield, raised 
about $20,000 that year for the beautiful Chil- 
dren's Home, which was occupied by the asso- 
ciation March 10, 1902. The home is of ar- 
tistic design and architecture, containing a 
large dormitory for the girls, another for the 
younger boys, and a third for the older boys, 
with a roomy nursery for the little mites, of 
whom there are always several under that hos- 
pitable roof. The basement contains the steam- 
heating plant, and a large children's play room, 
for use in winter and during storms, when the 
roomy out-door playground is not available. 
Airy dining rooms, kitchen, reception room 
and living rooms complete the equipment. 
Miss Grace Bradley, the present matron, has 
been in charge for three years, with four as- 



sistants. A kindergarten was taught here until 
the public schools took up this work this year. 

On April 25, 1905, there were 52 chilren in 
the home, ranging from two weeks to 14 years 
in age; 38 attend the public schools, while 14 
are too young, and the older of these receive 
their first instruction at the home. Some of 
the children are placed here by their parents, 
whose employment, or lack of a home, pre- 
vents their taking proper care of them, and 
these contribute something toward their main- 
tenance. But by far the larger number of the 
inmates are wards of charity. 

The Associated Charities' officers for 1905 
are : Mrs. Frank Shearer, president ; Mrs. 
Archibald McDonnell, Mrs. E. T. Carrington 
and Mrs. D. C. Smalley, vice-presidents ; Miss 
N^ellie Thompson, financial secretary; Mrs. 
George E. Harmon, recording secretary; Mrs. 
Wilfred E. See, treasurer. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Public Schools, Libraries and the Press. 



PUBLIC schools. 

Let us then be up and doing, 

With a heart for any fate; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 

Learn to labor and to wait. 

Bay City, East Side. — The progress and 
enlightment of any community, State or na- 
tion can best be judged by its schools. And 
in the light of that standard Bay County has 
from the first taken a creditable place in the 
educational field, and in 1905 Bay City ranks 
foremost among the cities of its size in that 
great field of endeavor in the United States. 
Unlike many other frontier settlements, Bay 
County's earliest pioneers were mostly people 
of education, and among them were citizens 
of more than ordinary culture and refinement. 
Hence some of the earliest public acts here 
pertained to the creation and the support of 
schools. 

The first school district was organized in 
April, 1842, and the first school was held in 
the Bonnel house, a one-story frame building, 
14 by 20 feet in dimensions, located on the 
river front near the foot of Columbus avenue. 
Miss Clark taught from June i to September 
I, 1842, her class consisting of Daniel Marsac, 
Margaret Campbell, Emily Campbell, Perry 
and Philenda Olmstead, Richard Trombley and 
P. L., H. B. and Esther Rogers. Thomas 



Rogers was moderator. Judge Sydney S. Camp- 
bell, director, and Cromwell Barney, assessor. 
Capt. David Smith assumed charge January 
I, 1843, '^^■'tb 2^ scholars, of whom William 
R. McCormick, John Churchfield and Israel 
and Dan Marsac were more than 21 years old 
proving that the pioneers believed their chil- 
dren were never too old to learn. 

On January 7, 1845, the new school house, 
one-story, 21 by 26 feet in size, was completed 
near the foot of Washington avenue, and 
Harry Campbell, the joker of early folk-lore 
here, taught the young idea how to shoot. 
The district extended for more than three miles 
along the river front, and the children had to 
trudge man}' weary miles morning and even- 
ing. Miss A. E. Robinson taught in 1847-48, 
for a salary of $1.50 per week and "boarding 
'round 1" In season, teacher and pupils paddled 
to school in Indian canoes. 

By 1854 the township of Hampton re- 
quired better school facilities for 160 children 
of school age then enrolled and the Adams 
street school was built to seat 300 pupils. This 
answered the purposes of the East Side until 
1865. This Adams street school of the Sec- 
ond Ward was then enlarged to accommodate 
500 pupils. In 1884 the writer attended this 
school then crowded to its capacity. Miss 
Holmes being principal and Miss Lucy Bertch, 
Miss Babo, Miss Newkirk and Miss Rutledge, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



311 



teachers, several of whom are still on Bay 
City's efficient corps of instructors. 

In 1866 another school was opened on Mc- 
Kinley avenue and Adams street, seating 120, 
with every place filled. That year the Farragut 
School property was bought for High School 
purposes at a cost of $4,400, and the Sherman 
School property cost $2,800. 

The union School District of Bay City 
was incorporated March 20, 1867. In 1868 
George Campbell built the Farragut School 
for $67,350, the first session being held in 
April, 1869. Additions had to be made that 
year to all the existing schools, and Prof. D. 
C. Scoville became superintendent. The 
schools were graded, thoroughly disciplined 
and organized. In 1874 Prof. I. W. Morley 
became superintendent, and for nearly 20 years 
superintended the growing school system. 

Just 30 years ago, in 1875, there were six- 
school buildings, with 35 teachers and 3,800 
school children. In 1882 the present High 
School building was started on Madison ave- 
nue and nth street, and despite many additions 
is quite inadequate for the use of Greater Bay 
City in 1905. In 1885 there were nine schools, 
51 teachers and 6,650 pupils. The teachers' 
salaries amounted to over $16,000. 

In 1877 tlie training school for teachers was 
organized, the supply before that coming 
largely from abroad, and by 1S85 over 40 of 
the local teachers had graduated from the High 
School, and taught at least one year in the 
training department. 

In 18S3 the school property was valued at 
$154,548. the bonded intebtedness of $30,000 
had been wiped out and the Board of Educa- 
tion of the East Side from that time to this has 
managed to keep down its bonded indebted- 
ness, in encouraging contrast to the indebted- 
ness of the West Side school district in 1905. 
In 1883 Professor Morley reported an enroll- 



ment of 2,983 pupils, — 1,494 boys and 1,489 
girls; 1,712 were from eight to 14 years old. 
The average daily attendance was 2,056. 

The school census of the Union School Dis- 
trict of Bay City for the school year ending 
September 7, 1903, showed a total of 9,488 
children of school age; of these, 4,587 were 
boys and 4,901, girls. The Eighth Ward con- 
tained 3,009 children of school age, nearly one- 
third of the total, while the Ninth Ward 
showed the smallest number of children, — 322. 

Supt. John A. Stewart's report for the year 
ending June 30, 1903, enumerated 11 school 
houses, the value of the school property, includ- 
ing the Fitzhugh site, being given as $326,500, 
without any bonded indebtedness. The amount 
paid for superintendence and instruction was 
$60,380.79, while for current expenses, includ- 
ing the amount paid on account of the addi- 
tion to the Garfield school, there was paid out 
$26,178.65, making the total cost of the schools 
$86,559.44. The taxable property of the city 
for the same period was $11,426,135. The 
a\-erage attendance for the year was 3,675 
while the average of pupils enrolled was 3.768, 
making the per cent, of attendance 97.52. Of 
the 121 regular teachers, nine were men and 1 12 
women. There were also five special teachers. 
There were 59 non-resident pupils enrolled. 

The following is a statement of finances of 
the Union School District of Bay City, for 
the year ending June 30, 1903 : 

RECEIPTS. 

Balance on hand July I, 1902 $ 9,687 87 

Tax collections from levy of 1902 48,707 49 

Back tax collections 13,924 95 

Refund from State for School for Deaf 694 58 

Primary School Fund 24.154 20 

Tuition 574 06 

Sales 12 50 

Fines 4 25 

Sundries 25 22 

Total $97,785 12 



312 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



DISBURSEMENTS. 

Teachers' wages $60,380 79 

Janitors' wages 6,463 00 

Secretary 500 00 

Text book clerk 240 00 

Superintendent's clerk 200 00 

Contingent 3.509 38 

Printing and stationery 1,027 25 

Fuel 3.399 56 

Repairs i.8S4 18 

Building and building supplies 961 29 

Text-books and supplies 5.9o8 99 

On account of Garfield addition 2,115 00 

Balance on hand July i, 1903 11,225 68 

Total $97,785 12 

After deducting $2,115 P^'^id on account of 
construction of the addition to the Garfield 
school, the total cost of the schools for the 
year was $8-1.444.44. The above mentioned 
cash balance of July i, 1903 does not include 
the $9,000 in the building fund. 

The different school buildings on the East 
Side were built in these years : Farragut, 1868, 
valued at $40,000; Shemian. 1874. valued at 
$22,000; Fremont and Whittier, both in 1875, 
valued at $25,000 and $15,000, respectively; 
High School, 1881, valued at $75,000; Dolsen, 
1883, valued at $40,000; Woodside, 1884, 
valued at $5,000; Garfield, 1886, valued at 
$40,000; Lincoln, 1889, valued at $20,000; 
Washington, 1895, valued at $35,000; High 
School Annex. 1903. valued at $6,500. All 
the buildings are of brick and two stories high, 
except the High School Annex and the Wood- 
side School, which are one-story frame struc- 
tures. The High School, High School Annex 
and Dolsen School are heated by steam, while 
the others are heated by furnace, except the 
Fremont School, which is heated by furnace 
and steam. In Bay City's schools there are 87 
session rooms and 31 class rooms, with 4.761 
sittings. 

The public schools of Bay City are organ- 



ized into three departments of four years each, 
making 12 years in all. Each year is further 
subdivided into B and A grades, each grade 
covering the work of a half year. In addition, 
there is a sub-primary grade for children who 
are barely of school age, and for those who at 
home speak a foreign language. In the sub- 
primary kindergarten methods are largely used. 
The primary department proper consists of four 
years as does also the grammar department. 
Taken together, the eight grades of these two 
departments constitute what is known as the 
couimon school course. The school year of 38 
weeks is divided into terms or semesters of 19 
weeks each. Pupils are regularly promoted at 
the end of each semester, whenever in the judg- 
ment of the superintendent their qualifications 
entitle them to advancement. A pupil is sub- 
ject to reclassification at any time, but no one 
is placed in a lower grade except by the consent 
of the superintendent. Xo pupil who has been 
regular in attendance is required to go over the 
same work more than twice. If at the end of 
a second semester the pupil is still found de- 
ficient, a trial in the next higher class is al- 
lowed. During the last week of each of the 
first four school months in a semester, the 
teacher records her estimate of the value of 
each pupil's scholarship, and at the close of 
the semester an average of these estiinates with 
the result of the examination, such examina- 
tion counting only as one estimate, determines 
the promotion. By consent of the superin- 
tendent the examination may be dispensed with 
and the promotion made to depend fully upon 
the teacher's estimate. 

In four of the schools, branch libraries are 
in full operation, with books provided from 
the Public Library. This plan has proved a 
great success as is plainly evident from the 
number of books drawn, which are mostly 
juvenile but also include some for adults. For 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



313 



the year ending March i, 1904, 6,387 volumes 
were drawn credited as follows : Fremont 
School, 2,2~^\ Garheld School, 1,878; Sherman 
School, 1,261 ; Whittier School, 970. 

The Bay City High School is in a flourish- 
ing condition and forms a fitting climax to the 
work of the city school system. It is indeed a 
department of which our citizens may well be 
proud, furnishing as it does the finishing 
touches to the education of so many of the 
graduates of the grammar department and at 
the same time giving adequate preparation to 
those who wish to continue their studies at 
higher institutions of learning. In its ec^uip- 
ment it is well prepared to meet all reasonable 
demands of the present time. The physical 
laboratory is supplied with apparatus, which 
has been accumulated gradually from year to 
year, sufficient to enable the scholars to pursue 
their investigations under the guidance and di- 
rection of the instructor. The chemical labor- 
atory is equally well fitted to give to each stu- 
dent the fullest scope for individual experi- 
mentation. The biological laboratory likewise, 
while on a smaller scale than the other two la- 
boratories, is well fitted for its own special 
work in the study of botany and zoology. In 
this department the students are thoroughly 
trained to the proper use of the microscope, the 
laboratory being fully supplied with excellent 
instruments. The school is also equipped with 
a telescope, an electric stereopticon and with a 
collection of several hundred specimens of 
rocks and minerals. The commercial depart- 
ment has grown to be a very popular feature 
of the institution, excellent instruction being 
given in bookkeeping, typewriting and stenog- 
raphy and the allied branches. The school has 
a department of manual training, which is 
justly popular and a school library has been 
organized that has proved itself to be a useful 
feature of the institution. Graduates of the 



Bay City High School are entitled to enter the 
University of Michigan on diploma as well 
as a number of leading colleges both in the 
East and in the West. The elective system of 
courses has been in vogue for some years past. 
The teachers employed in the High School, 
19 in number, are almost without exception 
college graduates, with an average teaching 
experience of more than 10 years. Even with 
the Annex, which became so imperative as a 
means of relieving the congested condition of 
the High School, every part is now occupied 
and the question of additional room will again 
soon have to be met and settled. Indeed it 
cannot be many years before a new and modern 
High School, suited to the needs of a large 
and growing city, will have to be constructed. 

The training school, which within its limi- 
tations has so greatly assisted toward infusing 
into the teachers of the Bay City schools a spirit 
of love for the work and love for the children, 
has wrought a complete change in the atmos- 
phere of the school room. In a large measure 
the feeling of fear has been eliminated from 
the schools and the feeling of respect for and 
confidence in the teacher has taken its place. 
For this change great credit is due the training, 
which the young teachers receive in this school. 
For the last 15 years or more, it has been the 
custom to put teachers of the higher classes in 
charge of the several rooms and to provide each 
teacher with an assistant from a lower class. 
The two teachers in each room hear their 
classes alternately and while one conducts a 
recitation the other renders individual assist- 
ance to tlie pupils under her special charge. 
This arrangement enables the teacher \\\\o- 
knows most about the pupils and their work 
to give such assistance as may be deemed ad- 
visable. 

The Bay City Oral School for the Deaf, 
conducted in the Washington School, has been- 



314 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



an unqualified success and is doing a work that 
would largely have been neglected but for this 
school. It may well be considered as comple- 
mentary and not in opposition to the State in- 
stitution at Flint. The pupils, with very few 
exceptions, could hardly have been sent from 
their homes and must have gone with little or 
no training, where now they receive the very 
best that can be given. This school has been 
hampered by the State departments, both edu- 
cational and financial, who have read into the 
law what the supporters of the local institution 
fail to find, and who have gone out of their 
way to make seemingly unfriendly rulings. 

Bay City, West Side.— Capt. B. F. Pierce 
gave the land for the first school house on the 
West Side, then the township of Bangor. It 
was situated on the high ground, a quarter of 
a mile from the river bank, where Michigan 
and Litchfield streets now intersect. The 
sovereign people of Bangor gathered there to 
vote in those early days, and the zealous mis- 
sionary assembled the pioneers within its walls 
to proclaim the glad tidings of salvation. The 
village of Banks also established a school in a 
diminutive shanty about this time, and from 
1863 to 1868 school was held in the Town 
Hall. Salzburg had a little district school of 
its own, when Wenona bloomed forth on the 
shaded oak ridge in 1864. James A. Mc- 
Knight, in 1905 still hale and hearty, was the 
father of the first permanent school house in 
\\'enona, negotiating the $10,000 issue of 
bonds voted for that purpose. George Camp- 
bell built the Central School for $9,500, while 
the school furniture cost $1,200, an ex- 
travagant outlay in the minds of many sturdy 
pioneers, for the sum was a large one accord- 
ing to the standard of those days of self-denial 
and hard work. Out of 300 enrolled children 
of school age, 180 attended on January 27, 
1868, when A. L. Cummings began his labors 



as superintendent. In 1868 Banks built a com- 
modious school, which was destroyed by fire 
in November, 1877, and the present two-story 
brick school replaced it, at a cost of $8,000. 

In 1880 the West Side had three school 
districts, with the following trustees: First 
District, Frederick W. Bradfield, moderator; 
Robert Long, director; Bernard Lourim, as- 
sessor ; Second District : Theodore F. Shepard, 
moderator ; James A. McKnight, director ; La- 
feyette Roundsville, assessor ; Spencer O. 
Fisher, \V. ]\I. Green and J. H. Plum, trustees ; 
Third District; B. Staudacher, director; 
Charles Anderson, moderator ; Rudolph La- 
derach, assessor. The late F. W. Lankenau 
was superintendent, and among his well-known 
corps of teachers a quarter of a century ago 
were Mrs. C. C. Faxon, F. C. Thompson, Affa 
Weatherby and Mrs. C. A. Thomas. The to- 
tal number of school children was 2,531. 

Since then new schools have been erected 
as follows: Dennison School, Sixth Ward; 
Corbin School, Second Ward ; Jenny School, 
Fourth \\'ard, presided over by Afta Weather- 
by, a veteran teacher of 1880: Kolb 
School, Fifth Ward, and Park School. Second 
Ward, both handsome and substantial two- 
story brick structures: and Riegel School, Fifth 
Ward. 

The officers of the Board of Education of 
the West Side for the year 1903-04 were as fol- 
lows: President, George L. Lusk; vice-presi- 
dent, Jesse W. Coles ; secretary, John M. Roy ; 
treasurer, William E. Magill. E. D. Palmer 
was superintendent of the schools. There were 
seven teachers in the High School, five in Cen- 
tral School, 10 in Trombley School, 10 in Park 
School, 10 in Kolb School, six in Riegel School, 
six in Jenny School, four in Dennison School 
and four in Corbin School ; these with the su- 
pervisor of music made up the teaching force 
of 63 members, of whom seven were men and 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



315 



56 were women. In addition to these regular 
teachers, there were four substitutes. 

Townships and X'illages. — The same 
commendable spirit that brought the pubhc 
school system of Bay City to its present high 
state of perfection brought the little country 
school to every nook and corner of Bay County, 
the pioneers usually having a school in opera- 
tion long before a store or other public utility 
graced their little settlement. 

Portsmouth township had the first school 
in Bay County, a block-house on the river 
front, at the foot of Fremont a\'enue, being 
fitted up about 1838, which school was taught 
by Judge Albert IMiller. A larger building 
was erected in 1850, which served as a school 
and meeting house for many years. The town- 
ship has three school districts at the present 
time. 

There were four school houses in Hampton 
township 25 years ago, with Ralph Pratt, su- 
perintendent; J. H. Sharpe, school inspector; 
William Felker, clerk. In 1904 another hand- 
some brick school house was completed on the 
Center avenue road, whose equipment will 
compare favorably with that of the best district 
schools in the country. The children in Essex- 
ville attended the little log school house a mile 
east of the settlement from i860 to 1870, when 
the village built its own frame school building. 
This was destroyed by fire in 1879, and was 
at once replaced with the present substantial 
two-story lirick school house. A quarter of 
a century ago, F. N. Turner was principal ; 
]\Iiss Jennie Fry and ;\Iiss Mary Felker. teach- 
ers ; Joseph Hudson, moderator ; Henry F. 
Emery, director. In 1905, Walter L. Snyder 
is principal ; Misses Heminway, Warren. Robi- 
son and St. Clair, teachers : William Felker, 
director ; and A. E. Harris, moderator. There 
are seven school districts in the township. 



The first school in Williams township was 
established in Charles Bradford's farm-house,, 
with Mrs. Charles Fitch, teacher. The town- 
ship has now six school districts, each having 
its own school. 

Bangor's early school history is that of 
Banks and Wenona. This township has three 
school districts. 

Frankenlust township, for some years after 
its settlement in 1848, depended upon its 
German parochial schools for the advancement 
in knowledge of its youth, and Amelith had a 
similar school for some years after 185 1. In 
the course of time, however, this township also 
secured its quota of district schools, and in 
1905 has two school districts, well supplied 
with resources and teachers. 

The Indian Mission at Kawkawlin, built 
in 1847, served for some years as school for 
the early settlers of that vicinity and the more 
ambitious of the red children of the forest. 
By 1857 Jftmes Eraser and Frederick A. Kaiser 
furnished accommodations for the children of 
the settlement on the Kawkawlin. In 1861 
]\Iiss Carrie Chilson (now Mrs. C. C. Faxon) 
taught in the primitive little school, which was 
replaced by a more commodious and modern 
structure in 1873. In 1885 there were six 
schools in the township, with an attendance 
that taxed their capacity. At the present time 
there are eight school districts. 

In 1855 some of the German settlers in the 
southwestern partion of Monitor township 
established the first school. In 1885 Monitor 
township had four schools, with 168 scholars, 
out of 274 of school age. These schools were 
also meeting places for worship on the Sabbath 
for many years. There are now six school 
districts in the township. 

Beaver township, which now has six 
schools, had three schools 25 years ago, with 



3i6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



145 scholars, and the httle red school houses 
■were used for Sunday-schools and for preach- 
ing on the Sabbath. 

The first school at Pinconning was taught 
for the children of a few fishermen and Indians 
in the old mission church at the mouth of the 
Pinconning River. In 1869 a small frame 
building became the village school house. A 
more commodious and modern school building 
replaced it in 1875, when M. R. Hartwell be- 
gan his duties, which extended over more than 
a quarter of a century in the same school. In 

1904 the village school was destroyed by fire, 
and is being replaced this year by a modern 
stone and brick structure, two-story and base- 
ment, capable of seating 250 pupils. At the 
present date the township has six schools dis- 
tricts. 

One of the main objections to the separa- 
tion of a part of Portsmouth township and set- 
ting it up as Merritt township was the division 
of the Union school District. However, the 
-Sturdy people of INIerritt township were not 
long in supplying their neighborhood with 
good schools, the first one being opened in 
1874, and much more centrally located than 
formerly. At the present time the township 
has six school districts, with a large attendance 
and intelligent management. County School 
Commissioner John B. Laing came from the 
Merritt schools to his present position in 1903. 

Fraser township is divided into five school 
districts, each having ample school facilities. 

The latest organized townships — Garfield, 
Mount Forest and Gibson, which have, re- 
spectively, five, four and six school districts — ■ 
sustained the record of the earlier organized 
townships by giving their very first attention 
to the educational facilities of their communi- 
ties, in the wilds of the primeval forest. In 

1905 each has well-organized and thoroughly 
equipped district schools. 



According to County School Commissioner 
J. B. Laing's official data just entered, the at- 
tendance in Bay County's district schools for 
the first quarter of 1905 was 4,101. 

On September 5, 1904, the list of legally 
qualified teachers in Bay County contained 114 
names, classified as follows: Life certificates, 
four; Central Normal School certificates, three; 
County Normal Training Class certificates, 
one: approved ist grade certificates, four; 2nd 
grade certificates, 68; ist year 3rd grade cer- 
tificates, 16; 2nd year 3rd grade certificates, 
seven; 3rd year 3rd grade certificates, 10; 
special teacher in music, one. 

The low average of persons of school age 
still unable to read or write in all Bay County 
as revealed in the Federal census of 1900 is 
the best evidence of the good work done for 
the little red school house in this county, and is 
the best reward for devoted attention by the 
earliest settlers and their successors in the line 
of duty to this day. Intelligence and progress, 
education and prosperity, are all handmaidens, 
whose mutual advantages can never be over- 
estimated. 

LIBRARIES. 

Bay City Public Library. — Near the 
close of 1869 a number of citizens, under the 
lead and inspiration of B. E. ^^'arren and 
Aaron J. Cooke, conceived the idea of a circu- 
lating library for Bay City, and on the 4th of 
December of that year articles of association 
to that end were filed in the clerk's office. A 
\-ery energetic organization followed, and dur- 
ing the next two years a sufficient fund had 
been raised to purchase and maintain a well- 
selected library of 3,000 volumes, at a cost in- 
cluding the necessary furniture of $5,000. 
This was accomplished chiefly by the creation 
of perpetual and life memberships. There was 
besides a considerable list of annual members. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



317 



whose fees helped to swell the funds of the as- 
sociation. Of course under this plan access to 
the books was confined to paying members. 

Under the constitution of Michigan, all 
fines and penalties for infraction of State laws 
are set apart for the benefit of the school dis- 
trict libraries. Prior to 1874 no use had been 
made of this fund in Bay County, and a con- 
siderable sum had accumulated in the county 
treasury. To the greater part of this fund 
Bay City was entitled on account of its large 
school population. In addition to this, the city 
had been required to raise annually by taxation 
the sum of $200 for library purposes. From 
these sources there had been placed to the credit 
of the library fund of Bay City, prior to March 
2, 1874, the sum of $2,899.25, which was then 
subject to the disposal of the Board of Educa- 
tion for library purposes. While such an 
amount was wholly inadequate to the purchase 
and maintenance of a considerable and inde- 
pendent public library, it would, if added to 
what had already been raised and expended by 
the Library Association, constitute one highly 
respectable in point of size, and capable of im- 
mensely beneficial influence in the cause of 
public education. The Library Association was 
first to perceive this, and with characteristic 
liberality made overtures to the Board of Edu- 
cation looking to a surrender of their library to 
the puljlic, the only condition exacted in return 
being that the Board of Education should 
maintain the library for public use, and add to 
it by the immediate expenditure of the fund in 
hand for additional books, and continue to 
make such additions as fast as means should be 
placed at its disposal for the purpose. This 
proposition was received favoraljly by the 
Board of Education, and was immediatelv car- 
ried into effect. At this time a surplus of $500 
Avas also given by the Library Association with 
the condition that it should be used in the pur- 



chase of "Americana," for it was early decided 
by the trustees of the old association to make 
the "Story of our Country" its specialty. 

On March 4, 1874, Mr. Fowler, a member 
of the Board of Education, reported that "the 
consolidated library is now open to the public," 
and moved that the fact be advertised, which 
was done. By this arrangement the manage- 
ment of the joint library was entrusted to a 
committee of six : three from the Board of 
Education, and three of the directors of the 
association. When the first board of trustees, 
thus formed, took charge, the library contained 
6,005 volumes. 

In the year 1877 it appeared to the friends 
of the Public Library that the interests involved 
in it were sufficient to justify and recjuire the 
care of a special board, so an act was secured 
from the Legislature requiring the Board of 
Education to appoint six trustees, two of whom 
were to go out of office annually. By this act 
the board of trustees became a corporation and 
vested with all the property and funds of the 
Public Library. They cannot, however, con- 
tract debt without the assent of the Common 
Council, which at that time was recjuired to 
raise not less than $200 nor more than $1,200 
annually for the library. This requirement has 
since been changed, and the Council now has 
authority to appropriate such sums as may be 
considered necessary and wise. For several 
years past the sum of $3,000 has been appro- 
priated annually. 

The first board of trustees constituted under 
the act above referred to, entered upon its du- 
ties May 26, 1877. The members were : Archi- 
bald McDonnell, James Shearer, H. IM. Fitz- 
hugh, James W'atrous, William Daglish and 
A. J. Cooke. The mayor of the city is ex 
officio chairman of the board of trustees. The 
old Association Library was housed in the 
Court Ilouse temporarily. At the time of the 



3i8 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



consolidation it was housed in the second story 
of the Averell Building. From there the h- 
brary was removed to a building erected 
especially for it on the south side of Washing- 
ton avenue, 200 feet from Center avenue. 
Early in the fall of 1887 the library was re- 
moved to the southwest corner of Sixth and 
Aadms streets, where it was opened to the pub- 
lic on October 12th of that year. In the spring 
of 1898 it was removed to its present perman- 
ent quarters in the City Hall, and was opened 
to the public on April loth of that year. 

Henry Braddock was the first librarian of 
the old Bay City Library Association. He was 
succeeded by Mrs. Ferris, who later became 
Mrs. Benjamin Whipple. She remained in 
charge of the library until the Public Library 
was organized in 1877. In June of that year 
Miss Jennie Gilbert became librarian and held 
the office until she was succeeded by Miss Julia 
A. Robinson in 1884. In October, 1888, Mrs. 
Annie F. Parsons, now the widow of Archibald 
McDonnell, became librarian and served ten 
years, being succeeded l^y the present librarian, 
A. J. Cooke, in August. 1898. Mr. Cooke 
'has been identified with the library since the 
formation of the old association, serving con- 
tinuously on the board of trustees, of which he 
is now secretary. The library is greatly in- 
debted to him for his liberal gifts of time, 
money and books. 

In 1876 the library was made a depository 
of United States and State documents, and 
from that date has been supplied regulaily 
with such documents as the law authorizes to 
be sent to depositories. In 1877-78 with 6,005 
vohimes it issued 20,982; in 1901-02 with 21,- 
688 volumes, it issued 69,037. The total issue 
for the first 25 years was 957,362 volumes, an 
average of 38,299 volumes a year. The largest 
circulation of any year was in 1902-03 when 
more than 79,000 volumes were issued. In 



1904-05 the librarian required the services of 
three assistants, the total circulation for that 
year being 74,344 volumes, with 25,549 vol- 
umes in the library. The following gentlemen 
compose the present board of trustees : Edgar 
Yi Sharp, president of the Board of Educators, 
chairman c.v officio; Hon. Chester L. Collins, 
John A. Stewart, Byron E. Warren, William 
L Clements, C. B. Curtis and Hon. Hamilton 
M. Wright. 

Sage Public Library. — The idea of pro- 
viding West Bay City with a free public library 
and reading room was considered by Henry W. 
Sage for several years before he gave it definite 
shape in 1881. In speaking of his purpose to 
some of the citizens, he emphasized his desire 
to supply the means whereby young men might 
gain greater facility in public speaking. The 
plan in his mind comprehended not only a 
library and reading room, but a debating 
school, where young men could learn to think 
and talk upon their feet. The plans for the 
building reached West Bay City in April, 1882, 
and on January 16, 1884, it was dedicated by 
fitting public exercises held in the Westminster 
Presbyterian Church. An eloquent oration 
was delivered by Prof. Moses Coit Tyler, of 
Cornell University, which has been preserved 
in the catalogue of the library, together with 
the presentation address by Mr. Sage and the 
speech of acceptance by Hon. Spencer O. 
Fisher, then mayor of the city. 

The extreme dimensions of the building 
are 56 by 90 feet, two and a half stories high. 
The style is of that bewildering mixture of 
many styles termed modern architecture. Its 
beauty is acknowledged by everyone. The 
front is relieved by an octagon projection con- 
taining a niche for the imported terra cotta 
statue representing literature and science, the 
projection being finished into a bay window 
for the reading room in the second story. There 





■f. 







AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



321 



is also a square extension of 10 feet near the 
west side for the vestibule of the Midland street 
entrance and stairway. The building is of red 
brick with black and buff brick and Amherst 



blue stone trimmings. 



The gothic roof is 



slated and nothing which could add to the 
beauty or convenience of the structure was 
omitted. The whole interior is finished in 
black ash, including the ceilings. The original 
cost of the building, land, library, furnishings 
and heating apparatus amounts to a sum not 
far short of $50,000. The gift of the donor 
included about 8,000 volumes selected with 
great care and excellent judgment. There are 
now on the shelves 28,860 books. 

In his presentation speech, Mr. Sage made 
the following statement regarding the manage- 
ment of the library : 'Tts permanent ex officio 
trustees will be the ministers of all evangelical 
churches, resident and in charge of parishes 
here, the principal of the public school of the 
Second Ward, the chairman of the board of 
trustees of School District No. 2, the mayor of 
the city and five other citizens of the city to 
be designated by me. These last named to 
hold their offices for five years, and thereafter 
vacancies to be filled according to the terms of 
the act. In pursuance of this act I have ap- 
pointed as the trustees to be designated by me, 
S. O. Fisher, T. F. Shepard, E. T. Carrington, 
J. H. Plum and H. S. Ingersol, and S. O. 
Fisher, chairman of the board of trustees. 
This gives you a completely organized es- 
tablishment prepared for work and use. It is 
my earnest hope that each and every one of the 
trustees, and especially the resident ministers, 
may take an interest in the work allotted to 
them, and so far as they can to lead the young 
men of the city to avoid all the less worthy re- 
sorts for pleasure and amusement and learn to 
come here for their own improvement and cul- 
tivation. It is for them and for them largely 

18 



that this gift is made, that they may obtain 
knowledge, and through it wisdom, and the 
power which belongs to both." 

The library was incorporated by an act of 
the Legislature, passed March it,. 1883. Of 
the present board of trustees, the following 
members are the successors of those appointed 
by ^Ir. Sage: Hon. Spencer O. Fisher, who 
has been president of the board continuously 
since its organization, Hon. Theodore F. Shep- 
ard, H. H. Norrington, I. B. Richardson and 
George L. Lusk. The first librarian was Airs. 
M. F. Ostrander, who was succeeded in Jan- 
uary, 1899, ^y ^liss Phebe Parker, M. B., who 
is the present incumbent. Under Miss Parker's 
able direction, the library has reached its pres- 
ent high standard of efficiency. A card index 
has been installed which is arranged on the 
dictionary plan, making the resources of the 
library immediately available to those of the 
most limited education as well as to scholars 
familiar with library methods. 

THE PRESS. 

If we have whispered Truth, 

Whisper no longer; 
Speak as the tempest does,. 

Sterner and stronger; 
Still be the tones of Truth, 

Louder and firmer ! 

—Whitticr. 

The public press ! What a wonderful agent 
for progress in any community and any coun- 
try, where its powers are exerted in the inter- 
est of the public good I And in these opening 
days of the 20th century that power is almost 
paramoimt in this great country. Public opin- 
ion, the beacon-light of our national life and 
government, has no greater inspiration than 
the press. Pulpit and forum are no longer the 
great and preeminent molders of public opin- 
ion they once were. For the spoken word is 



322 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



heard, its echo Hngers for a moment and then 
dies away, but the dictum of pen and type Hves 
on forever. 

The remotest corners of our land are now 
reached by the daily press through the rural 
free delivery routes, and the townspeople no 
longer monopolize this field of information 
and education. This is particularly true in Bay 
County, where a fine school system has for 
half a century been busy inculcating a desire 
for knowledge and information, and where a 
fine road system makes the delivery of the 
daily newspaper to the remotest settler a com- 
paratively easy matter. 

Yet it was not always thus! About 1885 
the writer was a carrier for the Evening Press 
and Morning Tribune, and his customers in 
the lower end of Bay City were widely scat- 
tered. Apparently few in that section of the 
booming lumber town read the daily press of 
that day. But it was no fault of those editions, 
for they were strictly up-to-date, then as now. 

From the time of the first attempt at print- 
ing a local paper in 1856, when Hon. James 
Birney edited the Bay City Press, down to our 
modern-day dailies, the residents of Bay 
County ha\-e been exceedingly well served by 
the local press. To judge by the checkered and 
strenuous careers of these dispensers of pub- 
lic news, they were always rather ahead of 
their times and vicinity. The cultured citizens 
demanded telegraph and news service of a 
character that the financial support of the 
frontier community hardly warranted. 

The first enduring newspaper was the Press 
and Times, published by William Bryce from 
1859 to 1864, when the Bay City Journal, John 
Culbert, editor, took its place. In 1871 this 
ambitious sheet appeared as the first daily, but 
by February, 1873, it had run its course. Hon. 
James Birney resuscitated it as the Daily and 
Weekly Chronicle, the daily section lasting un- 



til 1S7. 



^^'hen Judge Birnev went to The 



Hague as United States Minister, his son, Ar- 
thur M. Birney, continued the JVeekly Chron- 
icle until 1879, when it was merged with the 
Tribune. 

In 1872 Henry S. Dow, publisher of the 
first authentic history of Bay City, established 
the Luinbcrnum's Gazette, which proved a 
prosperous publication until the lumber indus- 
try declined in these parts. It was remo\-ed to 
Chicago in 1887 and is the oldest lumber jour- 
nal in the world. 

In 1905 the triumvirate which established 
the Bay City Tribune in 1873, — Chief T. K. 
Harding of the Fire Department, Aid. Ed. 
Kroencke, bookbinder, and Griffin Le\\is, job 
printer, — are still acti\-e in their respective 
fields of usefulness. Jolm Culbert was the first 
editor. Later Henry S. Dow purchased the 
paper, discontinuing the weekly in 1875, and 
in 1 88 1 a stock company secured control. 
From that day to this, the Tribune has had 
the morning field practically to itself, being the 
official organ of the Republican part}-. In 
1904 I. W. Snyder retired from the company, 
and Editor E. D. Cowles resumed the chair in 
the editorial sanctum he had occupied some 20 
years previous. James C. McCabe is the busi- 
ness manager, W. H. Sheward, Jr., city edi- 
tor, and J. H. Dunnewind, staff reporter. The 
Tribune has all the latest equipment in press 
and typesetting machinery, and its Sunday Tri- 
bune is an edition unsurpassed in Michigan. 
The Tribune was burned out while located in 
the Rlarston Building on Saginaw 'street in 
1878, but in less than two weeks reappeared 
in a new dress of type. 

The evening field has witnessed more 
numerous changes. The Ez'cniiig Press was 
established in 1879 by Moran & Hardwick 
and later purchased by E. T. Bennett. In 1881 
D. M. Carey was taken in as editor and part 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



owner, and his crisp reminiscences of his ex- 
periences in this busthng lumber town are 
amusing readers all over the country in 1905. 
The Press was an independent paper, with a 
large circulation. 

The Frcic Prcssc, an independent German 
weekly, was started by G. Reuther in 1878, 
and through many vicissitudes is still active 
and prosperous under the able management of 
August Lankenau, with David Koch as city 
editor. 

Then as now, the Democrats have found 
it difficult to sustain an official organ, for in 
April, 1881, they put the Morning Call into the 
field, with Bert Moran as chief typo, Leonard 
Cline, manager, and C. S. Wilson, city editor. 
In May of that year, George F. Lewis, a prac- 
tical and experienced editorial writer, took 
charge. But three years of hard work merely 
demonstrated the fact that there was room for 
only two dailies, and the last Call came, in 
1884. 

The Signal, a Democratic weekly, existed 
from 1867 to 1870; the Leader in the same 
line lasted less than a year, and the JVcekly 
Observer was established by the late lamented 
A, McMillan and Ed Forsyth in 1876. In 
1878 J. W. Griffith came fresh from the greens 
of Greenville, I\Iichigan, took charge of the 
daily, found to his sorrow that running a dairy 
and running a newspaper were two vastly dif- 
ferent propositions, and in 1880 the Observer 
ceased to observe. 

Meanwhile the \\'e3t Side had not been 
neglected, even if results indicated little appre- 
ciation. As early as 1869 E. D. Cowles, the 
veteran editor of the Tribune in 1905, with 
Dan P. IMcMullen, now ex-State Senator and 
postmaster of Cheboygan, started the Weekly 
Herald, which was moved to Bay City in 1872 
and .sold to C, S. Wilson, as the Jl'eekly 
l^eader, which did not long lead. The JVenona 



Herald owned by S. H. Egabroad entered the 
West Side field in 1872, W. J. Ward pur- 
chased it in 1873, and by 1879 he was satisfied 
there were brighter pastures at Dowagiac, 
whither he moved the plant. The JVeekly Ex- 
aminer was started by AI. A. Dowling and 
Charles R. Stuart, in 1879, and shortly after 
becoming a daily, in 1881, the plant was wiped 
out by the big fire, and never replaced. The 
JVest Bay City Times died an infant of three 
months in 1886. The Michigan Odd Felleiv, 
de\'Oted to the interests of that order, was es- 
tablished in 1874 by Dr. Joseph Hooper, Ed- 
ward Newkirk, and Charles C. Gustin, ap- 
peared semi-monthly for nearly four years and 
then vanished. 

As we look over the journalistic graveyard 
we find the Red Ribbon, 1877; Morning Nezvs, 
a single sheet, 1877-82; Ec/w, 1878: Penny 
Post, 1879. The JJ'cst Bay City Times. 1887- 
89, laid the foundation for the Bay City Times, 
which in 1905 is an eloquent evidence of the 
law of the survival of the fittest ! The N'ational 
Globe swept in on the Greenback tidal wave in 
1880, Colonel Roberts master of ceremonies. 
In 1882 the Globe died. As we wander down 
the lane of time we find more tombstones : 
Boc. a society sheet, 1881 ; Daily World, 1885 ; 
Daily Star, Knights of Labor organ, began 
life November 25, 1885, boomed for a while 
and then sank beneath the horizon. Carrie C. 
Laing, in 1905 the city encyclopedia of the 
Evening Times, was one of the luminaries of 
that Star. The Weekly Sun, 1886, soon struck 
an eclipse and was seen no more. Catliolic 
Chronicle. 1882-84: German Journal, 1884; 
French Souvenir, 1883; L'Enfard N'ational, 
1884; such in a few short months was the ar- 
ray of journalistic entries and exits. 

Some of the older pioneers recall, with 
something of a shudder, Dan. R. Curry's 
]]''eckly Growler, whose chief mission in life 



3^4 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



was to make some people's lives miserable with 
sensational matter, and just to prove that cer- 
tain elements in any community will support 
the sensational, the Grotdcr growled from 
1869 to 1873; ''1"'^ ^™""i ^875 to 1880, when 
its stock of invectives and vituperation gave 
out, and the exasperating growls were heard 
no more. Bert Moran's Tozi^'ii Talk in after 
years was an imitation of the same school. 
The Labor Vindicator, started in 1884 by a 
fire-eater, named D. C. Blinn, printed highly 
inflammable matter, suggestive of the an- 
archistic sheets of later days, and after taking a 
leading part in the big strike among the saw- 
mill employees, he thought it best to join the 
big colony in Canada, without awaiting per- 
sonal "vindication." 

From amid all these journalistic flash- 
lights, the one strong, enduring combination of 
literary ability and sound business manage- 
ment on the evening paper field appears with 
the Penny Press in 1879, started by Moran & 
Hardwicke, then taken over by Fred M. Van- 
Campen and Ed. Forsyth. In 1880 E. T. Ben- 
nett, took charge and named it the Evening 
Press. David M. Carey served on the editorial 
staff from 1S81 to 1884; while Armstrong & 
Rasmussen of Chicago bought it in 1886. On 
January i, 1887, Archibald McMillan began 
his 15 years of devoted work on the city's lead- 
ing evening daily, years of usefulness to the 
community, not soon to be forgotten. He was 
a veteran of the Civil war and began his news- 
paper career with the Detroit Free Press, being 
compositor, reporter and editor in turn ; at his 
death in 1902 he was the dean of the press 
here. 

In December, 1889, W. H. Gustin, the able 
and influential editor of the Evening Times 
in 1905, appears upon the local journalistic 
field in his first responsible endeavor, in the or- 
ganization of the Bay City Times, with L. L. 



Cline and F. M. VanCampen. In December, 
1890 the venerable Archibald McMillan allied 
himself with the younger daily, and no stronger 
combination ever existed on the local field of 
pen and type, than Editor McMillan, and Re- 
porter "Bert" Gustin, as he is popularly known 
throughout' Michigan. The Bay City Times 
Publishing Company was organized in 1891, 
and the Evening Times consolidated with the 
Evening Press. For the last 14 years, the Times 
has been the sole local supply of the evening 
field, as the Tribune is of the morning field. 
The stockholders in the Bay City Times Pub- 
lishing Company have changed from time to 
time, until in 1903 the Scripps syndicate of 
Detroit bought the splendidly equipped plant. 
B. M. Wynkoop is now the general manager, 
George G. Booth, president ; W. Herbert Gus- 
tin, managing editor; W. A. Clarke, chief 
typo; J. D. Jones, pressman; Garrie C. Laing, 
city editor. Since 1903 the political gy-rations 
of the Times have ceased, and it is now one of 
Michigan's leading independent dailies. Dur- 
ing the month of ]\Iarch, 1905, the Evening 
Times had a bona fide paid circulation of 8,- 
462 copies daily. Under the able and con- 
scientious editorial management of Mr. Gustin, 
the Times has become a power for good in the 
community. And above all, it works unceas- 
ingly for the intellectual and material growth 
and development of the city and county. Much 
of the success of the consolidation movement 
is due to its earnest and undeviating support of 
a union, decreed by Nature but long frustrated 
by trivialities. Editor Archibald McMillan 
died in the harness, but his mantle has fallen 
on able shoulders. One need but peruse its 
pithy columns, and particularly the untram- 
meled editorial page, to appreciate the worth 
of this vigorous independent daily, so dear to 
many homes in Bay County. 

So in 1905 Bay County has reason to feel 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



325 



proud and satisfied with its local representa- 
tives of the daily press. Both the morning and 
evening publications have special wire coin- 
niunication with all parts of the globe, and 
nothing happens in the farthest ends of the 
earth, that is not promptly served to a discern- 
ing and appreciative community. Time and 
again the local papers have "scooped" the great 
dailies of Michigan's metropolis, particularly 
in some of tlie stirring events in the Russo- 
Japanese campaign in Korea and Manchuria, 
1904-05. Naturally the local press has four 
hours the better of the Detroit dailies, and 
this difference in wire delivery of news and 
railroad delivery of newspapers works to the 
everlasting advantage of equally well-served 
Associated Press representatives in Bay City. 
The Tribiuie occupies two floors and base- 
ment of the Watson Block, with nicely fur- 
nished offices and airy editorial and reporting 
rooms, while the Evening Times owns and 
occupies the modern Tiines Building just south, 
at No. 709 Water street, also two stories and 
basement. Both plants have all the latest in- 
ventions throughout, and the many special edi- 
tions put out on the main events of the last 
year have amply demonstrated their ability to 
meet any emergency. The Times this year in- 
augurated several innovations, doing away 
with the Sunday issue, and publishing, instead, 
three issues daih;, beginning at noon. This 
latter feature commends itself, especially to the 
communities tributary to Bay City on the north 
and west. 



Bay City also has several thriving weeklies 
in addition to the older publications enumer- 
ated. The Sugar Beet Culturist, D. T. Cutting, 
editor, S. O. Burgdorf, manager, and Frank 
Zagelmeyer, treasurer, has a national reputa- 
tion for good work done for tlie infant beet 
sugar industry, and its career dates from the 
building of the first beet sugar factory in Bay 
City in 1898. In 1905 we find it branching 
out, so as to cover the entire field of farm jour- 
nalism. The success of its publishers is well 
merited. 

The Bay City Democrat is a weekly, owned 
and published by George Washington, the \-et- 
eran leader of that party, whose cause his pub- 
lication espouses. He also issues the Indus- 
trial Herald, the sole local representative of 
the labor field, from the joint plant on Ninth 
street. 

The Prawda, W. V. Prybeski. publisher, 
is the only Polish weekly still in existence, and 
dates from 1885. It has a wide and growing 
field. 

Le Patriot, H. A. Beaudin, publisher, is a 
weekly devoted to the interests of our French 
fellow-citizens, and under his energetic leader- 
ship should regain the prominent place in the 
specialty field of our cosmopolitan population 
held by this publication in years past. 

The Modern Archer is a monthly publica- 
tion devoted to the interests of the I\I. A. 
A., Bay City's promising fraternal insur- 
ance society, with headquarters in the Crapo 
Block. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Fraternal, Benevolent and Labor Organizations. 



MASONIC. 

Bay City Lodge, No. 129, F. & A. ^L— 
As early as 1858 a meeting of Masons was held 
in the second story of the Jennison store, which 
was attended by Nathan B. Bradley, H. M. 
Bradley, James J. McCormick, William R. 
McCormick, C. B. Cottrell, John F. Cottrell, J. 
H. Little and Clark Aloulthrop ; but no organ- 
ization was effected until October, i860, when 
a dispensation was granted by the grand master 
of the State of Michigan to William R. Mc- 
Cormick as worshipful master, and William A. 
Bryce and Nathan B. Bradley as wardens, with 
power to organize a lodge of Free and Accepted 
Ivlasons in Bay City. Accordingly Bay City 
Lodge, No. 129, F. & A. M., was organized 
with the following officers : William R. Mc- 
Cormick, W. M. ; William A. Bryce, S. W. ; 
Nathan B. Bradley, J. W. ; John F. Cottrell, 
secretary pro tent. ; George C. Fray, S. D. pro 
ton; Thomas Hargrave, J. D., pro tci/i.; C. L. 
Fisher, tyler pro tcm. Upon the lodge receiv- 
ing its charter in 1861, William A. Brj'ce was 
elected master. The lodge has always pros- 
pered and at present has 348 members. It has 
numbered among its members many of the lead- 
ing men of Bay City. The present officers are 
W. D. Parks,' W. 'll. ; W. G. Kelly, S. W. 
William Kerr, J. \\^ ; A. L. Stewart, treasurer 
J. W. Mount, secretary; James 'M. Laing, chap- 



lain ; R. A. Bulla, S. D. : Stanley ^^■arfield, J. 
D. ; E. J. James and C. Wanless, stewards - 
James P. \Varfield, marshal ; A. Smith, tyler. 

Portsmouth Lodge, No. 190, F. & A. M., 
was organized by William R. McCormick, 
Charles Stevens and ^V. H. Southworth, in 
1865. The first meeting was held in the second 
story of the residence of Elisha G. Allen, in 
Portsmouth. The charter members were : Will- 
iam R. McCormick, Charles Stevens, W. H. 
Southworth, A. C. Braddock, Hamilton Bur- 
nett, C. D. Fisher and Charles E. IMerrell. A 
charter was granted in November, 1867, when 
George Lewis was elected worshipful master. 
In 1868, the lodge bought a lot and erected a 
building, using the second story for their lodge 
room and renting the lower story for stores. 
The present officers are : Robert L. King, W. 
M. ; Henry Graham, S. W. ; L. M. Persons, J. 
W. ; George J. Boyden, S. D. ; Ernest C. Hew- 
itt. T. D. ; Henry A. Boiteau, secretary; Will- 
iam ^^'arren, treasurer ; Frank Elliott and Otto 
Laderach, stewards. The lodge has 262 mem- 
bers 

Wenona Lodge, No. 296, F. & A. M. 
(West Side), was chartered January 15, 1869, 
Neil Matheson being named as worshipful 
master, Hiram Bunnell as senior warden and 
C. P. Black as junior warden. The pre'^ent 
officers are : George L. Lusk, W. M. ; Willard 
N. Sweenev, S. W. ; Hiram Darling, J. W. ; H. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



327 



H. Burdick, treasurer; Willis D. Fox, secre- 
tary ; Alfred L. Mosher, S. D. ; Harry J. Kay- 
ner, J. D. ; James S. Todd, tyler. The lodge has 
230 members. 

Joppa Lodge, No. 315, F. & A. M., was or- 
ganized in 1874. Its present officers are: C. 

B. Chatfield, W. M.; W. S. Ramsay, S. W, ; 
W. E. Wedthoff, J. W. ; C. E. Rosenbury, 
treasurer; George S. Crampton, secretary; G. 
W. Hand, S. D. ; J. L. Wardell, J. D.;'j. C. 
Hine and J. P. Robertson, stewards ; Rev. J. G. 
Inglis, chaplain ; G. A. Hemstreet, marshal. 
Joppa lodge has 371 members. 

Pinconning Lodge, No. 402, F. & A. ]\I. 
(Pinconning), was organized under a dispensa- 
tion granted April 27, 1891, and had eight 
charter members. There are now 54 members. 
John Anderson is worshipful master and Henry 

C. Mansfield, secretary. 

Blanchard Chapter No. 59, R. A. M., was 
chartered January 8, 1868. Its officers are : O. 
F. Harding, H. P. ; W. H. Lefevre, K. ; A. L. 
Sovereign, S. ; C. L. Fox, secretary ; Louis 
Goeschel, treasurer ; E. G. Pike, C. of H. ; H. 
P. Warfield, P. S. ; ^\'illiam Greenleaf, R. A. 
C. ; George E. Scovel, M. of 3rd V. ; Guy I. 
Lamont, M. of 2nd V. ; Fred W. McCoy, M. of 
ist v.; Austin Smith, sentinel. 

Bay City Chapter, No. 136, R. A. M., was 
chartered January 20, 1897. Its officers are: 
Melvin Hodgins, H. P. ; Charles E. Layer, K. ; 
William H. Frey, S. ; C. E. Rosenbury, treas- 
urer ; F. O. Gilbert, secretary ; G. S. Crampton, 
C. of H. ; F. A. Nichols, P. S. ; James S. Todd, 
R. A. C. ; W. O. Clift, M. 3rd V. ; James A. 
Wells, M. of 2nd V. ; John A. Stewart, M. of 
1st v.; Austin Smith, sentinel. 

McCormick Grand Lodge of Perfection 
was chartered September 16, 1884. Its offii 
cers are : I. A. Gilbert, T. P. G. M. ; H. E. 
Meeker, H. of T. D. G. 'M. ; J. A. Stewart, V. 
S. G. M. ; D. A. Trumpour, V. J. G. M. ; O. A. 



Smith, G. O. ; C. E. Rosenbury, G. treasurer; 
Daniel Marshal, grand secretary; W. O. Clift, 
G. M. of C. ; C. E. Layer, G. C. of G. ; R. A. 
Sutherland, G. H. Bro. ; Austin Smith, G. tyler. 

Bay City Council, Princess of Jerusalem, 
was chartered September 16, 1884. Its officers 
are : W. A. Penney, M. E. S. P. G. M. ; Eu- 
gene Fifield, G. H. P. D. G. M. ; J. A. W^ells, 
M. E. S. G. W. ; H. E. Meeker, M. E. J. G. W. ; 
Charles E. Rosenbury, V. G. T. ; Daniel A. 
Marshall, V. G. S. ; Frank O. Gilbert, V. G. M. 
of C. ; M. Hodgins, V. G. M. of E. ; Austin 
Smith, tyler. 

Saginaw Valley Chapter, Rose Croix, was 
chartered September 16, 1884. Its officers are: 
A. L. Stewart, M. W. and P. M. ; J. A. Stewart 
M. E. and S. K. S. W. ; W. O. Clift, M. E. and 
P. K. J. W. ; Rev. William Bryant, M. E. and 
P. K. G. C. ; C. E. Rosenbury. R. and P. treas- 
urer ; Daniel A. INIarshall, R. and P. K. S. ; 
Alexander Sutherland, R. and P. K. H. ; W. 
A. Penney, M. of C. ; James A. Wells, R. and 
P. K. C. of G. ; Austin Smith, R. and P. R. T. 

Bay City Council, No. 53, R. & S. M., was 
chartered January 15, 1884. Its officers are: 
W. O. Clift, T. I. M.; T. F. Heine, D. M.; 
M. L. Davies, P. C. ; A. L. Stewart, treasui'er; 

C. L. Fox, recorder ; E. G. Pike, C. of G. ; I. 
A. Shannon, C. of C. ; Austin Smith, sentinel. 

Bay City Commandery, No. 26, K. T., was 
chartered June 8, 1870. Its officers are: 
Charles S. Ruttle, E. C. ; W. O. Clift, G. ; C. 
R. Hawley, C. G. ; E. L. Davis, S. W. : C. H. 
Frantz, J. W. ; A. L. Stewart, P. ; C. E. Rosen- 
bury, treasurer; Louis Goeschel, recorder; H. 
\V. Weber, Stan. B. ; George H. Keating, Sw. 
B. ; Guy Lamont, W. ; A. Smith, sentinel ; G. 
W. Handy, ist G. ; I. A. Shannon, 2nd G. ; T. 

D. Campbell, 3rd G. ; S. R. Birchard, adjutant. 
As yet no Masonic bodies beyond the iSth 

degree have been organized in Bay City. 
The following description of the ]\Iasonic 



328 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Temple in Bay City is taken from the Michigan 
Masonic Year Book : 

This building is one of the handsomest in 
the whole country, and is a decided ornameni 
to Bay City. It represents great and successful 
efforts on the part of the craftsmen, and is well 
worthy of extended description. The site of 
the building was purchased in the summer of 
1890 by the several ?\Iasonic bodies meeting in 
the old hall on Center avenue. Ground was 
broken in October of the same year, and on June 
24, 1 89 1, the corner-stone was laid with impos- 
ing Masonic ceremonies, by Grand Master Look 
of the Grand Lodge of Michigan, and the ad- 
dress was made by Grand Master of Knights 
Templar Hugh McCurdy. The building was 
completed and occupied by the several ^lasonic 
bodies in February, 1893. The Temple covers 
an area of 100 by 100 feet at the corner of Mad- 
ison avenue and Sixth street, and is three stor- 
ies high on the ]\Iadison avenue side, divided 
into parlors, drawing rooms, reading rooms, 
closets, etc. Running back from these, each con- 
suming about 30 feet of the width, including 
corridors, are the lodge or assembly rooms — 
one 30 by 66 feet with gallery on the sides, the 
other 29 by 48 feet, designed as a chapter and 
commandery room, each with a stage and cor- 
ridors running all around them, and ample pre- 
paration room. The height of ceilings of as- 
sembly rooms is 38 feet. The basement con- 
tains the banquet hall or dining room, 45 by 
48 feet, kitchen, pantry, etc., the hall for the 
Lodge of Perfection, 28 by 48 feet, closets, 
wash-rooms and the heating arrangements. The 
style of architecture is Moorish, with a flat 
roof, a portion of which is covered with tile 
and a portion with gravel. Before the fare it 
had one tower 114 feet high, and one large 
and two small Moorish domes covered with 
copper. The large dome and the tower have 
not vet been rebuilt. The material of which 



the building is built is Rock River brownstone, 
rough ashlar. There are t\vo entrances : One 
on the Madison avenue side — the main — admit- 
ting to lodge rooms and the parlors and dining 
hall, and the side entrance on Sixth street, lead- 
ing to parlors and dining hall. There are over 
one hundred windows of stained and plate 
glass, the whole costing $90,000. 

On INIay 19, 1903, a disastrous fire burned 
the entire structure, excepting the two front 
walls. The loss was about $52,000. The 
Temple has been entirely rebuilt, except the 
high tower and dome, and practically on the 
same plan ; one more lodge room, however, has 
been provided than the former structure con- 
tained. 

Portsmouth Lodge also owns a commodious 
and modern Temple on Broadway, begun in 
1895 and completed in 1903. It is a three- 
story frame structure, with fine lodge rooms, 
parlors, banquet hall and accessories. 

ORDER OF THE EASTERN STAR. 

Sharon Chapter, No. 20, has for its ofiicers : 
Mrs. Edna Van Auken, \V. M. ; J. Simmerson, 
W. P. ; Mrs. Eva LeFevre. A. M. ; i\Irs. Emma 
Nieman, C. ; Mrs. Marian Ayea, A. C. ; Mrs. 
Hattie Mingo, secretary, jNIrs. J. Elliott, treas- 
urer; ]Mrs. Sarah Catlin, chaplain. 

Temple Chapter, Xo. 125, has the following 
officers : Mrs. Marion Heine, \V. M. ; William 
Cuthbert, W. P.; INIrs. Carrie Reed, A. i\I. ; 
Miss Anna Russell, secretary; Mrs. Alvira He- 
witt, treasurer. 

Bay Chapter, Xo. 219 (West Side) was 
organized December 15, 1897, with 30 charter 
members. Mrs. Mattie E. Birchard, was the 
first worthy matron, and held the office contin- 
uously for five years. She was followed in 
office by Mrs. Jennie Brinkman, who is now 
serving her third vear as worthv matron. At 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



329 



present the other ofificers are : Mrs. Hattie Cor- 
bin, associate matron ; Mrs. Mattie E. Birchard, 
secretary. There are 155 members. 

Bethlehem Shrine, Order of the White 
Shrine of Jerusalem, has for its officers : Mrs. 
Mattie E. Birchard, W. H. P. ; Mrs. Ruth De- 
Remer, N. P. ; Mrs. William Crump, W. of S. ; 
Mrs. Emma Wedthoff, W. S. ; Mrs. Lizzie Hy- 
nian, W. T. 

INDEPENDENT ORDER OF ODD FELLOWS. 

Bay Lodge, No. 104, was organized in 
Portsmouth, in January, 1867, and was called 
Portsmouth Lodge. A. W. Watrous was its 
first noble grand. The lodge did not flourish 
as well as had been hoped for, and it was re- 
moved to Bay City in the hope that the change 
would prove beneficial. The name was changed 
to Bay Lodge in 1869. Its present officers are : 
F. P. McCormick, N. G. ; G. T. Thornthwaite, 
V. G. ; J. P. Tossell, secretary ; K. Greenberg, 
treasurer ; M. Thompson, L. St. Laurent and C. 
W. Maxon, trustees. 

Humboldt Lodge, No. 154 (German), was 
organized February 13, 1871. Its officers are: 
Peter Nusslet, P. G. ; Leonard Eichhorn, N. 
G. ; Frederick Kolb, V. G. ; Jacob Bingel ( re- 
cording secretary ; William Kurzrock, financial 
secretary; Carl Knorpp, treasurer. 

Wenona Lodge, No. 221, (West Side), has 
the following officers : L. H. Alverson, P. G. ; 
Alfred Pearsons, N. G. ; Robert Stringer, V. 
G. ; D. C. Walworth, recording secretary ; Fe- 
lix Yound, permanent secretary ; Henry J. Dol- 
son, treasurer. 

Lighthouse Lodge, No. 235, has the fol- 
lowing officers : William Wade, P. G. ; George 
Chapman, N. G. ; William Davidson, V. G. ; 
William Felker, recording secretary; George 
Wade, financial secretary; John Plush, treas- 
urer. 



Eden Lodge, No. 260, was instituted July 
6, 1875. Its officers are as follows: Peter 
Rose, P. G. ; Charles Chisler, N. G. ; Clarence 
Thorsby, V. G. ; Henry Cronell, R. S. ; George 
Shaw, P. S. ; Frank Tucker, treasurer. 

Canton Custer, No. 28 (Patriarchs Mili- 
tant), has the following officers: G. A. That- 
cher, commander; W. R. Rattray, lieutenant; 
Marcus Thompson, ensign; Wesley Schisler, 
clerk; George Rebbetoy, accountant. 

Kanonda Encampment, No. 36, has the fol- 
lowing officers : William Wade, C. P. ; Wes- 
ley Fredrum, H. P. ; James H. Grover, S. W. ; 
Charles Goetz, J. W. ; Samuel Hemingway, 
scribe; Frank Tucker, treasurer. 

REBEKAH DEGREE, I. O. 0. F. 

Degree Staff, No. 62, has the following of- 
ficers : Mrs. Anna J. Thatcher, P. G. ; Mrs. 
Mary M. Coon, N. G. ; Mrs. Belle Rattray, V. 
G. ; Miss Ada Dexter, secretary; Mrs. Emma 
Neimann, chaplain ; George Thatcher, captain. 

Grace Lodge, No. 8. has the following of- 
ficers : Mrs. Ida Klippel, P. G. ; Mrs. Anna 
Boisvert, N. G. ; Mrs. L. E. Clark, V. G. ; Mrs. 
Lillie Durham, recording secretary ; Mrs. Grace 
Slater, financial secretary; John P. Tossell, 
treasurer. 

Excelsior Lodge, No. 30, has the following 
officers : Mrs. Sarah Tesch, P. G. ; Miss Sarah 
Mingo, N. G. ; Mrs. Jennie Wright, V. G. ; Mrs. 
Amanda Nash, recording secretary, Mrs. Hat- 
tie Mingo, financial secretary; Mrs. Amelia 
Boynton, treasurer. 

Tillie Lodge, No. 49 (West Side), has the 
following officers: Mrs. Mamie Westpinter, 
P. G.; Mrs. Ida Moon, N. G. ; Mrs. May 
Thorne, V. G. ; Mrs. F. P. Downing, recording 
secretary; Mrs. Emma Coomer, permanent 
secretary; Mrs. Anna Morrison, treasurer. 

Lovina Lodge, No. 62, has the following 



330 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



officers: Mrs. ]\Iary M. Coon, P. G. ; Mrs. 
Anna Robertson, N. G. ; Mrs. W. Best, V. G. ; 
Mrs. J. Meeks, recording secretary; Mrs. Ada 
Reinhardt, permanent secretary; Miss Bessie 
Blake, treasurer. 

Elmira Lodge, No. 102, has the foHowing 
officers : Mrs. Grace Netting, N. G. ; Mrs. Ag- 
nes L. Burleson, V. G. ; Mrs. Olive Burgess, 
recording secretary; Mrs. Anna E. Felker, fi- 
nancial secretary; Mrs. Sadie Williams, treas- 
urer. 

Odd Fellows' Temple on Washington ave- 
nue was originally the First Presbyterian 
Church. Its central location and spacious 
lodge rooms make it an ideal meeting place, 
and a number of fraternal orders make this their 
meeting place. 

KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS. 

Bay City Lodge. No. 23, was organized 
July 6, 1875. The charter officers were: Will- 
iam Ferris, C. C. ; E. A. Radabough, V. C. ; 
William Simpkins, P. ; William Treat, M. of 
F. ; John Coryell, :\I. of E. ; H. A. Eraser, K. 
of R. and S. ; John Powell, M. at A. This lodge 
has ever since taken a foremost place in Bay 
City's long list of fraternities. Their castle 
hall was for years in the Concordia Block. 
When the Elks' Hall on Center ave. was com- 
pleted. Bay City Lodge moved into the more 
modern and luxurious quarters. The officers 
are : James L. iNIcCormick, C. C. ; Alex. Im- 
lay, V. C. : J. F. Asman, P. ; W. J. Lambert, 
M. of E.; George Cuthbret, M. of F. ; William 
A. Clark, K. of R. and S. ; Frank Prosser, M. 
at A. ; W. H. Newcomb, I. G. ; Jesse Radford, 
O. G. ; E. J. Wasson, trustee. 

Woodland Lodge, No. 145, was con- 
solidated with Bay City Lodge in November, 
1900. This lodge was organized originally in 
Portsmouth, but after that village became a 



part of Bay City, it was found desirable to 
unite the two lodges. 

Othello Lodge, No. 116, (West Side), has 
these officers : Eugene Cummings, C. C. ; R. 
Ross Bell, V. C. ; Stewart Powrie, P.; J. W. 
Digby, M. of W. ; William H. Caldwell, M. of 
E. ; W. H. Chase, M. of F. ; W. A. Collins, K. 
of R. and S. Othello Lodge in January, 1905, 
opened their new castle hall and club rooms on 
Midland and Walnut streets, and now have one 
of the coziest homes on the West Side. They 
have the banner degree team in Michigan, be- 
ing frequently invited to exemplify the degree 
work of the order in lodges throughout the 
State. Othello Lodge is in a flourishing condi- 
tion, with a membership of over 300. The 
club rooms include a billiard and card parlor, 
smoking rooms and parlors, dining rooms and 
kitchen. 

RATHBONE SISTERS. 

Othello Queen Temple, No. 30, (West 
Side), has these officers: Mrs. Carrie Coffin, 
M. E. C. ; Mrs. Nina Cummings, M. of R. and 
C; Mrs. Daisy Ribble, M. of F. ; Mrs. M. 
Howe, M. of T. 

Fidelity Temple, No. 32, has these officers : 
Emma Radford, P. C. ; Edith Ralph, M. E. C. ; 
Lucinda Schindehette, E. S. T. ; Alice Prosser, 
E. J. T. ; Mary Webster, M. of R. and C. ; Sadie 
Imlay, M. of F. ; Ida Brawn, M. of T. ; May 
Prosser, P. of T. ; Mary Parks, G. of O. T. 

BENEVOLENT AND PROTECTIVE ORDER OF ELKS. 

Lodge No. 88 was organized in Bay City, 
April 25, 1888, and received its charter on July 
1 2th of the same year. Its first officers were as 
follows: A. McMillan, exalted ruler: L. B. 
Beach, esteemed leading knight; W. D. Rich- 
ardson, esteemed loyal knight; J. C. Weadock,. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



33^ 



esteemed lecturing knight ; E. M. Sharp, secre- 
tary; H. M. Wright, treasurer; Wilham Meri- 
thew, tyler; John Cunningham, inner guard; 
James Antisdel, esquire; D. Alexander, chap- 
lain; P. O. Hudson, organist. In June, 1903, 
the lodge purchased the Eddy Block on Center 
avenue for $25,000 and remodeled it at a cost 
of $8,000. The furnishings cost another $6,- 
000. The second floor is used as a club room 
and the third floor for lodge rooms. This is 
said to be as fine a property as is owned by the 
order in the United States. The present offi- 
cers are : W. J. Asman, exalted ruler ; D. T. 
Cutting, esteemed leading knight ; T. C. 
Hughes, esteemed loyal knight ; L. G. Beck- 
with, esteemed lecturing knight ; C. L. Fox, 
secretary ; W. J. Daunt, treasurer ; F. E. Guds- 
chinsky, tyler ; Ray C. Hewitt, inner guard ; D. 
L. Galbraith, esquire; Rev. C. T. Patchell, 
chaplain. The lodge has 510 members. 

IMPROVED ORDER OF RED MEN. 

i 

Chippewa Tribe, No. 47, was organized 
JNIay 19, 1900. Its officers are as follows: 
Henry John, sachem ; Harry L. Randall, K. of 
R. and W. ; Charles Swanson, prophet. 

MODERN ARCHERS OF AMERICA. 

Bay City has the distinction of being one of 
the country's greatest centers of fraternal or- 
ganizations, on a per capita basis of population 
and fraternal membership. There is hardly a 
man or woman in this community that does not 
belong to from one to 1 5 different fraternal and 
benevolent associations, and there are a num- 
ber of good citizens who can boast the latter 
record, ^^■hile the citizens take very kindly to 
all manner of fraternal institutions, it remained 
for the ^Modern Archers of America to create 
a new fraternitv within Bav Citv, making this 



their home and headquarters. The project had 
been pending for some months, and on January 
I, 1903, the Modern Archers were organized 
under the insurance laws of Michigan and duly 
incorporated. The headquarters are in com- 
modious offices in the Crapo Building. Bay 
City Tent, No. i, is the parent lodge of the 
growing young order, with a charter member- 
ship of half a thousand. Subordinate lodges 
are being organized throughout the State. The 
Modern Archer is the official organ of the Mod- 
ern Archers of America, A. H. Gansser, Editor 
and publisher. 

The following are the executive officers of 
the Home Tent: Executive board, — M. L. 
DeBats, acting chief archer ; A. R. Ballamy, 
chief clerk; C. M. Bump, chief banker; F. P. 
McCormick, chief counsel. Advisory board, — • 
M. L. DeBats, chief associate archer ; Dr. C. T. 
Newkirk, chief physician ; A. D. Bailey, chief 
conductor ; T. C. Hughes, chief guard ; Chaun- 
cey Gregory, chief sentry. 

Bay City Tent, No. i, has these officers: 
A. R. Ballamy, past worthy archer ; C. A. Ste- 
wart, worthy archer; Melvina J. Julian, asso- 
ciate archer ; J. L. McCormick, worthy clerk ;. 
Bessie Labbe, worthy banker; R. J. Gamble, 
worthy conductor; W. E. McMillan, worthy 
guard ; Blanche Ames, musician. 

Broadway Tent, No. 3, has the following 
officers : Etta Wilde, past worthy archer ; Her- 
bert Shawl, worthy archer; Nettie Keene as- 
sociate archer ; T. J. Saliard, worthy clerk ; F. 
W. Braman, worthy banker; Elizabeth Malett, 
worthy chaplain ; Bessie Niemann, worthy con- 
ductor ; Addie Shawl, worthy guard ; James R. 
Keene, worth)' sentry; Edith Hannah, musi- 
cian ; Dr. R. C. Perkins, tent physician. 

Ora Tent, No. 9, has the following officers : 
Ricka Schvvalm, past worthy archer ; Jennie Al- 
len, worthy archer; Anna Glosser, associate- 
archer; Marv Himmelcin. worthv clerk; John 



-33- 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Allen, worthy banker; Jacob Schwalni, worthy 
chaplain; Mabel Glosser, worthy conductor; 
Clara Schroeter, worthy guard ; Katie Avery, 
worthy sentry. 

Main Tent No. 13, has the following offi- 
cers : Frank R. Gordon, past worthy archer ; 
Charles L. Ouelette, worthy archer; William 
Felker, associate archer; Anna E. Felker, 
worthy clerk; Olive Burgess, worthy banker; 
William Burgess, worthy chaplain ; Julia Van 
Pelt, worthy conductor; Estelia Ouelette, 
worthy sentry ; Ernest F. Crummer, tent physi- 
cian. 

Woodside Tent, No. 19, has the following 
officers : Hannah Walk, past worthy archer ; 
Frank Brisbois, worthy archer; Jennie Smith, 
associate archer; Lucy Demo, worthy clerk; 
Evelyn Gordon, worthy banker ; Augusta Witt- 
kopp, worthy conductor; Pauline Berling, 
worthy guard ; Dr. Byron H. Ovenshire, worthy 
sentry; Dr. Byron H. Ovenshire. physician; 
Dr. Alaucotel, assistant physician. 

INDEPENDENT ORDER OF FORESTERS. 

Court Bay City, No. 306. Officers : Thomas 
Boughner, C. R. ; George Ewell, F. S. ; Frank 

B. Smith, R. S. and treasurer. 

Court Miranda, No. 326. (West .Side.) 
Officers: Hugh McCormick, C. D. H. C. R. ; 
James S. Donald, P. C. R. ; Allen McKinnon, 

C. R. ; John Ames, V. C. R. ; Joseph Groves, F. 
S. : Charles Hitchcock, R. S. : John ]\Iercer, 
treasurer. 

Court Portsmouth, No. 622. Officers : Ed- 
Avard Hayes, C. R. ; J. J. Williams, V. C. R. ; 
George J. Boyden, R. S. ; O. W. Ballard. F. 
S. ; W. H. Warren, treasurer. 

Court West Bay City, No. 1,102. (West 
Side.) Officers : Henry S. Lewis, C. R. ; John 
Bloomshield, R. S. ; A. F. Powrie. F. S. : John 
Brigham, treasurer. 



LADY COMPANIONS OF THE I. O. F. 

Court Portsmouth, No. 56. Officers : Mrs. 
Emma Opperman, C. R. ; Mrs. Elizabeth Cas- 
sidy, V. C. R. ; Miss Sarah Hayes, R. S. ; Miss 
Clara A. Ballard, F. S. and treasurer; Mrs. 
Carrie Tesch, C. D. 

Court Wenona, No. 60. (West Side.) Offi- 
cers : Mrs. Flora Ferl, P. C. R. ; ]\Irs. Hattie 
Roach, C. R. ; Mrs. Annie Sturm, V. C. R. ; 
Mrs. A. M. Russell, F. S. ; Mrs. Kate Pard- 
ridge, R. S.; Mrs. Anna Craig, treasurer; Mrs. 
J. jMorton. orator. 

Court Miranda, No. 363. (West Side.), 
Officers: Mrs. Eva McKinnon, C. D. ; Mrs. 
Mary Royal, C. R. ; Mrs. Louis Shafer, V. C. 
R. ; Mrs. Mary Ames, P. C. R. ; Mrs. Ida Har- 
mon, R. S. ; Mrs. Maggie McCormick, F. S. ; 
Mrs. Mary Camp, treasurer. 

Court Bay City, No. 517. Officers: Mrs. 
Elizabeth Fargo, P. C. R. ; Mrs. Cora Jacox, 
C. R.; Mrs. D. Woodberry, V. C. R. ; Mrs. 
Alice Crooks, R. S. ; Mrs. Isabella Freeman, F. 
S. ; Mrs. Mary Cullen, treasurer; Dr. A. L. 
Ambrose, physician. 

Court Eastern, No. 757. (West Side.) 
Officers: Mrs. Ida Ryan, C. D. ; Mrs. S. C. 
Robinson, P. C. R. ; Mrs. Mary Donald. C. R. ; 
Mrs. Mary Dechan, V. C. R. ; I\Irs. Margaret 
Gillmaster, R. S. ; Mrs. ^Margaret Harvey, F. 
S. and treasurer. 

KNIGHTS OF THE MODERN MACCABEES. 

Phoenix Tent, No. 8. (West Side.) Offi- 
cers : Albert A. Marciniak. C. ; John Evans, 
Lt. C. ; John Boston, R. K. ; W. A. Waldron, 
F. K. ; Dr. T. L. Dagg, physician. 

Liberty Tent, No. 36. Officers : George 
N. Wheeler, P. C. ; E. E. Corlis, C. : Thomas 
Vernon, Lt. C. ; Sol. Wilhelm, R. K. ; Louis 
Goeschel, F. K. ; Dr. W. ]M. Bishop, physician. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



333 



Valley Tent, No. 94. Officers: J. D. 
Jones, P. C. ; C. L. Fox, C. ; O. W. Hewitt, Lt. 
C. ; Ray C. Hewitt, R. K. ; A. E. R. Bush, F. 
K. ; Dr. J. L. Ambrose, physician. 

South Bay City Tent, No. 177. Officers: 
O. J. Morton. P. C. ; Whitney Wells. C. ; Peter 
J. Ockstadt, Lt. C. ; William Chatterson, R. 
K. ; William H. Newcombe, F. K. ; Dr. A. T. 
Baird, physician. 

Bay Tent, No. 194. (West Side.) Officers: 
Dr. William G. Hare, P. C. ; Herbert Agans, 
C. ; George F. Atkinson, Lt. C. ; John D. Regan^ 
R. K. ; Elzear Rolland, F. K. ; Nelson Cham- 
pagne, chaplain; Dr. William G. Hare, physi- 
cian. 

Goethe Tent, No. 207. Officers: ]\Iax 
Wolf, P. C. ; George C. Reif, C. ; Charles A. 
Richter, Lt. C. ; Florenz H. Lutzke, R. K. ; G. 
H. Schindehette, F. K. ; Dr. L. Plessner, phy- 
sician. 

Eden Tent, No. 225. Officers : Joseph 
Stockle, P. C. ; Stephen Karpus, C. ; Lawrence 
McHugh, Lt. C. ; Michael Curley, R. K. ; An- 
ton Pizybylinski, F. K. ; Dr. William G. Kelly, 
physician. 

Lafayette Tent, No. 260. Officers : Jo- 
seph Dion, P. C. ; Patrick Grant, C. ; Henry 
Girard, Lt. C. ; Frank Dargis, R. K. ; Isidore 
Mirville, F. K. ; Charles Dion, chaplain ; Dr. Al- 
fred Maucotel, physician ; Dr. L. D. Grenier, 
medical examiner. 

Home Tent, No. 319. ( Essexville. ) Offi- 
cers : William Felker, P. C. ; John Gariepy, 
C. ; William Davidson, Lt. C. ; Ernest Thorn- 
thwaite, R. K. ; O. A. Lloyd, F. K. ; Dr. E. F. 
Crummer, physician. 

Royal Tent, No. 429. Officers : J. S. 
Armstrong, P. C. ; Leonard Ardiance, C. ; Ed- 
ward Lichtig, Lt. C. : Ernest Moule, R. K. ; 
Louis L. Grabowski, F. K. ; Dr. C. L. Ham- 
mond, physician. 

Salzburg Tent, No. 909. (West Side.) 



Officers : Frank Towns, P. C. ; Rudolph All- 
man, C. ; Theodore Laderach, Lt. C. ; James 
Wilson, R. K. ; S. P. Barton, F. K. ; Dr. R. W. 
Brown, physician. 

Bay City Tent, No. 930. Officers : J. H. 
McGibbon, P. C. ; Eugene Minnie, C. ; Fred 
Brisbois, Lt. S. ; Fred O'Hare, R. K. ; J. H. 
McGibbon, F. K. ; Dr. Byron H. Ovenshire, 
physician. 

Othello Tent, No. 932. Officers: Clay- 
ton W^anless, P. C. ; G. H. McCauley, C. ; J. 
Sheppard, Lt. C. ; Charles Walk, R. K. ; C. D. 
Monahan, F. K. ; Dr. S. E. Gustin, physician. 

LADIES OF THE MODERN MACC.\BEES. 

Excelsior Hive, No. 12. (West Side.) Offi- 
cers: Mrs. Mary Trombley, P. L. C. ; Mrs. 
Nora I. Cook, L. C. ; Mrs. J. N. Headings, Lt. 
C. ; Mrs. Nettie Patterson, R. K. ; Mrs. Jennie 
Palmer, F. K. ; Mrs. Carrie Gleason, sergeant; 
Mrs. Mary Chambers, chaplain. 

Eden Hive, No. 18. Officers: Mrs. Kate 
Ricker, P. L. C. ; Mrs. Rose Thompson, L. C. ; 
Mrs. Delia Bentley, Lt. L. C. ; Mrs. Rebecca 
McKee, R. K.;'Mrs. Ida Vandry. F. K. ; Dr. 
William G. Kelly, physician. 

Leota Hive, No. 28. Officers : Mrs. Emma 
Monosmith, P. L. C. ; Mrs. Delia Hutton, L. 
C. ; Mrs. S. J. Cliff, Lt. L. C. ; Mrs. Henrietta 
Hawkins, R. K. ; Mrs. J. W. Freeman, F. K. ; 
Dr. T. A. Baird, physician. 

Essex Hive, No. 29. (Essexville.) Officers; 
Susan Gordon, L. C. ; Dora Smith, Lt. L. C. ; 
Anna E. Felker, R. K. ; Katie Murray, F. K. ; 
Dr. E. F. Crummer, physician. 

Valley Hive, No. 45. Officers : Mrs. Car- 
rie Reed, P. L. C. ; Mrs. J. W. Radford, L. C. ; 
Mrs. Emma Stevens, Lt. L. C. ; Mrs. Alta Wan- 
less, R. K. ; Mrs. Louise McCaulej^, F. K.; 
Mrs. Mary Wiggins, physician. 

Vigilant Hive, No. 46. Officers: Cassie 
Gillies, P. L. C. ; Cornelia Abbs, L. C. ; Anna 



334 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



-Carr. Lt. L. C. ; j\lary Northcott, R. K. ; Belle 
Arnold, F. K. ; Dr. S. E. Gustin, physician. 

Wenona Hive, No. 47. (West Side.) Offi- 
cers : Mrs. Flora B. Hazen, P. L. C. ; Mrs. Al- 
vira Brown, L. C. ; Mrs. Mary Daniels, Lt. L. 
C. ; Mrs. Clara Williams, R. K. ; Mrs. Jennie 
Church, F. K. 

Liberty Queen Hive, No. 268. Officers : 
Mary Cullen, P. L. C. ; Ella Zimmer, L. C. ; 
Mrs. Mary Watkins, Lt. L. C. ; Anna Russell, 
P. K. ; Mrs. Alice Crook, F. K. ; Catherine 
Theborg, chaplain. 

Bay Royal Hive, No. 303. Officers : Mrs. 
Mary Lamb, P. L. C. ; Mrs. Anna E. Coffin, L. 
C. ; Miss Minnie Rothwell, Lt. L. C. ; Lizzie 
Robertson, R. K. ; Carrie F. Coffin, F. K. ; Mrs. 
Mary Grice, chaplain; Dr. L. C. Hammond, 
physician. 

Sunset Hive, No. 460. Officers : Mrs. E. 
L. Leavens, P. L. C. ; Hannah Walk, L. C. ; 
Mrs. Anna Hertz, Lt. L. C. ; Lucy Demo, R. 
K. ; Mrs. Margaret Tobin, F. K. 

Goethe Hive, No. 664. Officers : Minnie 
Fladung, P. L. C. ; Mrs. Christina Finn, L. 
C. ; Mrs. Anna Sturm, Lt. L. C. ; Miss Sarah 
Mulholland, R. K. ; Flora Ferl, F. K. ; Dr. L. 
C. Hammond, physician. 

Mme. Lafayette Hive, No. 700. Officers: 
Denilda Primeau, P. L. C. ; Mary Landry, L. 
C ; Caroline Guilmette, Lt. L. C. ; Georgina 
Lemieux, R. K. ; Josephine Honor, F. K. ; 
Elizabeth Ouilette, chaplain ; Dr. L. D. Grenier, 
physician. 

Salzburg Hive, No. 710. (West Side.) 
Officers : Emma Allman, P. L. C. ; Minnie 
Barton, L. C. ; Rose Nelson, Lt. L. C. ; Katie 
Suey, R. K. ; Belle Towns, F. K. ; Dr. R. W. 
Brown, physician. 

KNIGHTS OF THE MACCABEES OF THE WORLD. 

Alpha Tent, No. i. Officers: H. J. Grin- 
nell, P. C. ; W. H. Newcombe, C. ; H. C. Har- 



gadon, Lt. C. ; A. E. R. Bush, R. K. ; A. T. 
Colvin, F. K. ; Dr. S. E. Gustin, physician. 

Michigan Tent, No. 2. (West Side.) Offi- 
cers : Dr. R. W. Brown, P. C. ; C. F. Adams, 
C. ; Cain Parry, Lt. C. ; E. M. Reigel, R. and 
F. K. ; Dr. R. W. Brown, physician. 

Greater Bay City Tent, No. 4. Officers : 
Dr. LeRoy Lewis, P. C. ; Harry A. Scott, C. ; 
Frank Elliott, Lt. C. ; ^^^ E. Walter, R. K. ; 
Thomas R. Kelley, F. K. ; Dr. A. \\'. Herrick, 
physician. 

MODERN WOODMEN OF AMERICA. 

Lidependent Degree Team. Officers : Louis 
Repski, president; John Ebere, vice-president; 
John G. Dean, secretary; D. A. MacDonald, 
treasurer; J. E. MacDonald, chief forester; 
Henry Hamma, quartermaster. This team has 
attended all the national conventions and par- 
ticipated in the competitions, winning many of 
the prizes. 

Columbia Camp, No. 1.328. Officers: J. 
F. Dulong, V. C. ; J. W. Almond, \\'. A. ; C. 
C. McPhail, banker ; George Rebbetoy, clerk ; 
Frank Touchette, watchman. 

Valley Camp, No. 1,466. (West Side.) 
Officers : Arthur Collins, V. C. ; R. B. Newell, 
^V. A. ; Frank C. Warner, clerk ; Charles J. 
Barnett, banker; W. R. Neal, E. ; John Mc- 
Neil, ^V. ; Gottlieb Rexer, sentry; Dr. George 
E. Grover, physician. 

Bay City Camp, No. 1,490. Officers; V\"\\l- 
iam A. Clarke, V. C. ; Thomas E. French, W. 
A. ; A. H. Culbert, banker ; J. C. Bacon, clerk ; 
Robert Gamble, escort ; W. Madden, sentry. 

Center Camp, No. 1.5 14. Officers: Will- 
iam B. Catlin, V. C. ; James Willard, W. A. ; 
J. L. Seebeck, banker; Rodney Ellis, clerk; 
Hugh L. Potter, chief forester. 

Dewey Camp, No. 5,607. (Essexville.) 
Officers : ' Dr. E. F. Crummer, V. C. ; F. E. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



335 



Sovey, W. A. ; Albert \"anPopplen, banker ; F. 
O. Guindon, clerk. 

Elm Leaf Camp, No. 10,291. Officers: 
John Muenze, V. C. ; Alexander Petrimoulx, 
W. A. ; Joseph Latountaine, clerk ; Frank Co- 
burn, banker. 

ROYAL NEIGHBORS OF AMERICA. 

Evergreen Camp, No. 72. Officers : Mrs. 
Christina iMeekin, past oracle; Blanche Satti- 
more, oracle; Mrs. W. Taylor, vice-oracle; 
Mrs. Helen Johnson, recorder ; Mrs. Mary 
French, receiver; Mrs. Adeline Brabant, chan- 
cellor ; Mrs. Jessie Lumsden, marshal. 

Harmony Camp, No. 349. (West Side.) 
Officers : Mrs. Alice Wright, oracle ; Mrs. Jen- 
nie Embleton, vice-oracle; Mrs. Eva Coll, re- 
corder; Mrs. L. E. Sherman, treasurer; Dr. 
George Grover, medical examiner. 

Viola Camp, No. 1,688. Officers: Mrs. 
Eliza Nash, past oracle; Mrs. Ellen Hoyt, or- 
acle; Mrs. J. T. Harrison, vice-oracle; Mrs. 
Harriet Strong, recorder; oNIrs. Belle Hempel, 
treasurer; Mrs. G. Hohes, marshal. 

WOODMEN OF THE WORLD. 

Olive Camp, No. 10. Officers : William 
Bishop, C. C. ; J. C. Warren, A. L. ; George 
Leikert, escort ; Dr. J. H. Ball, banker ; Roy S. 
Youngs, clerk ; George Partridge, watchman ; 
Samuel Duso, sentry. 

ROYAL ARCANUM. 

Bay Council, No. 37. Officers : William 
Sempliner, past regent; W. W. Hodgkins, re- 
gent; F. A. Fancher, vice-regent; George P. 
Cobb, secretary; Rev. Wolf Landau, collector; 
M. M. Andrews, treasurer. 

Wenona Council, No. 38. (W'est Side.) 



Officers: Godfrey Kubach, past regent; Will- 
iam A. Wright, regent; L. B. Edinborough, 
orator; Fred W. Bradfield, secretary; Charles 
A. Babo, collector; August Bothe, treasurer. 

Tashmoo Council, No. 1,879. Officers: 
Walter Cunningham, past regent ; E. E. Corliss, 
regent ; J. N. Culver, vice-regent ; Walter Cun- 
ningham, secretary; W. B. Godfrey, treasurer. 

ROYAL LEAGUE. 

Utopia Council, No. 48; organized in 1888. 
Officers : Frank Rossman, archon ; E. G. Sov- 
ereign, vice-archon ; P. H. Crotty, scribe ; Rev. 
William Landau, collector; W. O. Cliff, treas- 
urer. 

TRIBE OF BEN HUR. 

Mars Court, No. 31. Officers: L. C. Lit- 
tle, P. C. ; Dr. L. C. Hammond, C. ; Mrs. Mary 
Russell, teacher; Mrs. J. T. Bailey, scribe; O. 
J. Coffin, K. of T, ; Mrs. Cornelia A. Abbs, 
judge; Rev. A. Emanuel Zeller, Ben Hur. 

PROTECTED HOME CIRCLE. 

Watkins Circle, No. 390. Officers : Jo- 
seph Love, P. P. ; John Dunham, P. ; George 
Collins, V. P. ; J. W. Ludwig, secretary and 
accountant; Samuel Auger, treasurer; Almira 
Kerkaw, chaplain. 

Bay City Circle, No. 448. Officers : Mary 
Cullen, P. P. ; John Corrigan, P. ; Amanda 
Dechan, V. P. ; Alice Crook, secretary and ac- 
countant; Charles Johnson, treasurer; Jennie 
Woodruff, chaplain. 

NATIONAL UNION. 

Bay City Council, No. 184. Officers: 
Thomas J. Cooper, president; Wolf Landau, 
financial secretary ; James M. Lewis, treasurer. 



336 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



ANCIENT ORDER OF UNITED WORKMEN. 

Excelsior Lodge, No. 52, was organized 
August 10, 1878. Officers: Louis Boze, P. M. 
W. ; Jules L. Boze, U. W. ; William Metcalf, 
foreman ; Wolf Landau, financier ; C. M. Den- 
ton, receiver; Frank Prochaska, recorder; 
Clarence Thorsley overseer. 

Center Lodge, No. 120, was organized in 
February, 1892. Officers: F. W. Youngs, P. 
M. W. ;\X. E. Sheldon, M. W. ; R. W. Clark, 
foreman; J. W. Mount, recorder; Robert Rid- 
ley, Sr., financier, W. J. Atkinson, receiver. 

Lodge No. 134. (West Side.) Officers: 
James Cower, P. M. W. ; Vilas W. Lankey, M. 
W. ; William J. Hawkins, recorder ; Oscar 
Boucher, financier; George A. Hawkins, re- 
ceiver. 

DEGREE OF HONOR, A. O. U. W. 

Home Lodge, No. 14, Officers: Mrs. 
Louise Sanders, P. C. of H. ; Mrs. Nancy E. 
Greeley, C. of H. ; ^Irs. A. J. Whaler, recorder; 
Mrs. J. C. Bacon, financier ; Mrs. Lizzie White, 
receiver. 

Wilson Lodg-e, No. 23. (West Side.) Offi- 
cers : Mrs. Maggie Smith, P. C. of H. ; Mrs. 
Catherine ]\Lirble, C. of H. ; Mrs. Martha 
Neal, L. of H. ; Mrs. Emma Cower, C. of C. ; 
Mrs. Ella W'alls, recorder; Mrs. Sarah Glenn, 
financier. 

Garfield Lodge, No. 69. Officers: Mis. 
Elizabeth Ridley, P. C. of H. ; Mrs. Mary 
Woods, C. of H. ; Miss Mable Collins. L. of 
H. ; Mrs. Laura Mason, recorder ; Mrs. Caro- 
line Gutsch, financier; Mrs. Jennie Clark, re- 
ceiver. 

KNIGHTS OF THE LOYAL GUARD. 

Division No. 41. (West Side.) Officers: 
Arthur V. Church, captain general ; Arthur T. 



Swart, recorder and treasurer; August J. 
Bothe, paymaster. 

Division, No. 48. Officers: A. H. Gans- 
ser, captain general; Fred J. Schultz, senior 
captain; D. L. Galbraith, junior captain; Fred. 
Crosbie, senior lieutenant; John Sills, junior 
lieutenant ; Edward T. IMcCloy, recorder ; Bert- 
hold Hahn, chaplain ; Frank Meisel, paymaster. 

Ladies' Auxiliary, No. 9. Officers: Mrs. 
Hannah Walk, captain general; Mrs. Alpha 
McCloy, recorder; Frank Meisel, paymaster. 

ORANGEMEN. 

Black Preceptory. No. 8. (West Side.) 
Officers: E. R. Phillips, preceptor; William 
Adair, deputy preceptor; W. S. Ramsey, sec- 
retary ; A. W. Dorland, treasurer. 

Lincoln Lodge, No. 224. (West Side.) 
Officers: Thomas Hamilton, W. RL ; A. W. 
Dorland, secretary and treasurer. 

UNION LIFE GUARDS. 

John A. Logan Post, No. 8. (West Side.) 
Officers: A. V. Church, major; Charles Acker- 
man, captain ; G. F. Phippen, lieutenant ; Ira 
J. Hiller, sergeant; Arthur T. Swart, adjutant; 
Fred Luibrand, paymaster; Theodore Renter, 
trustee. 

GRAND .A.RMY OF THE REPUBLIC. 

U. S. Grant Post, No. 67. Officers : Ches- 
ter L. Collins, C. ; George Turner, S. \". C. ; 
H. C. Green, J. \\ C. ; P. INIcGibbon, adjutant; 
L. McHugh, O. M. ; Jason Mandley, chaplain. 

H. S. Burnett Post, No. 278 (West Side.) 
Officers : E. T. Carrington, C. ; J. M. Cham- 
bers, S. V. C. ; H. H. Aplin, J. V. C. ; James A. 
McKnight, adjutant; Rev. William I. Lee, O. 
M. ; George A. Allen, chaplain. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



337 



H. P. Merrill Post, No. 419. Officers: J. 
W. Knaggs, C. : A. J. Cooke, S. V. C. ; G. \V, 
Butterfield, J. V. C. ; M. M. Andrews, adju- 
tant; George P. Cobb, Q. M. ; L. G. Willcox, 
chaplain. 

SPANISH WAR VETERANS. 

Gen. Henry \V. Lawton Command, No. 
60. J. M. Goepfert, captain; M. McGilvary, 
1st lieutenant; C. N. Colburn, 2nd lieutenant; 
J. H. Davis, adjutant; F. M. Schindehette, Q. 
M. ; Charles T. Newkirk, chaplain ; H. L. War- 
ren, national vice-commander. 

woman's relief corps. 

No. 97, Auxiliary to U. S. Grant Post, No. 
67, G. A. R. Officers: Mrs. Mary O'Brien, 
P. ; Mrs. Ella Z^immer, S. V. P. ; Mrs. Nellie 
Haller, J. V. P.; Mrs. Irma LaPointe, secre- 
tary; Mrs. Agnes Miller, treasurer; Mrs. Au- 
gusta McNab, chaplain. 

No. 169, Auxiliary to H. P. Merrill Post, 
No. 419, G. A. R. Officers : Mrs. Lettie Potts, 
P. ; Mrs. Virginia Chamberlain, S. V. P. ; Mrs. 
Amanda Bradley, J. V. P. ; Mrs. Martha Mc- 
Cabe, secretary ; Mrs. Clara Washer, treasurer ; 
Mrs. Emma Youngs, chaplain. 

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF VETERANS AND SONS. 

Camp Sheridan, No. 5. Officers: F. S. 
Pratt, lieutenant-colonel; L. AIcHugh, quar- 
termaster; August Meisel, major; George H. 
Granger, chaplain. 

arbeiter unterstuetzung verein. 

East Side. — The Arbeiter Unterstuetzung 
Verein, No. i, of Bay City, is the distinct as- 
sembly of worthy German citizens of this com- 
munity. Their commodious hall and club 
house, with its surrounding park and casino, 
occupies two acres on the corner of Johnson 

19 



and Seventh streets. On September 20, 1866^ 
this verein was organized at the Forest City 
House by John Hertz, Henry Lutzke, George 
Kiester, Franz Volk, Henry Nickel, Simon 
Zirwes, Adam Nickel, Henry Wuepper, John 
Wuepper and John Freund. The last named 
died in 1904, aged 89 years, while all the other 
charter members had gone before. It was the 
purpose of the little association to provide for 
the sick and needy, and to provide social diver-- 
sion and encouragement to the German emi- 
grants who were then coming to the valley in-- 
large numbers. From this little beginning 
sprang the Arbeiter Unterstuetzung Verein of 
Michigan, which numbers to-day 82 local so- 
cieties, with a membership of over 10,000. 

Verein No. i was incorporated February 
27, 1 87 1, and was reorganized in December, 
1901. Arbeiter Hall was built in 1873; with 
recent additions it has cost over $13,000. 
During the 30 years existence of this verein, 
the widows and orphans of its deceased mem- 
bers have received from the society over $55,- 
000; 71 members have died and the present 
membership is 468, with a flourishing ladies' 
auxiliary. Bay City entertained the 24th an- 
nual State convention, June 14, 1892, West 
Bay City the 27th, June 11-13, 1895. Bay 
City also held the Fourth Bundes Fest for 
Michigan, August 17-18, 1902, entertaining 
thousands of visitors from all parts of the coun- 
try. The first double funeral was held Sunday, 
March 26, 1905, when Joseph Letter, for years 
secretary of the local verein, and his brother-in- 
law, Louis Mueller, were escorted to their final' 
resting place. 

Verein No. i has these officers : Henry 
Fehrenbach, president ; Adolph L. Wirth, vice-- 
president; H. A. L. Uhtermalen, recording 
secretary; A. H. Gansser, corresponding sec- 
retary; Solomon Wilhelm, treasurer. 

The officers of the ladies' auxiliary are:- 



338 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Mrs. Christine Lutzke. president; JNIrs. Cath- 
erine Rickert, vice-president ; Mrs. I. Vandrey, 
.treasurer ; Mrs. AmeUa Greschow, secretary. 

West Side. — Arbeiter Unterstuetzung Ve- 
lein, Xo. 2, was organized in 1870 and in- 
corporated in 1872. It has a membership of 
168. Following are the officers: John Stau- 
dacher, president; Robert Burckhardt, vice- 
president; Julius Kaiser, recording secretary; 
Leonard T. Sichhorn, treasurer. 

The ladies' auxiliary society to Verein No. 
2 was organized in August, 1898 and has 68 
members. Officers: Mrs. Mary W'aldbauer, 
president; ^Nlrs. Louisa Kaiser, vice-president; 
Mrs. Christine Bergweiler. secretary; ]Mrs. Jen- 
nie Roth, treasurer. 

ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS. 

Division No. i. Bay County, was organ- 
ized June 22, 1887, with 30 charter members. 
The first officers elected were as follows : Dan- 
iel Mangan, C. P.; T. A. E. Weadock, P.; 
AVilliam Gaffney, F. S. ; J. C. Weadock, R. S. ; 
Edward O'Connor, treasurer. Those who have 
:since held the office of county president have 
.been: L. L. Richards, D. Mangan, Joseph P. 
Haffey, Cornelius J. Mclnerney, Harry J. 
X)aily and John Donovan. The division presi- 
dents since elected have been : John Donovan, 
Thomas Masterson, Joseph P. Haitey, John V. 
Hurley, H. J. Daily, Harry J. Tierney, L. P. 
'Coumans, Patrick Ryan, James D. Pearsall, 
'William F. Gannon and Charles McCormick, 
'The present officers are: John Donovan, C. 
P.; Charles :\I. McCormick, P.; Robert ]Mc- 
■Cauley, Treasurer : John Corrigan, F. S. ; Jo- 
seph P. Haffey, R. S. The organization has 
achieved much good for its members, both so- 
cially and by way of insurance. This division 
now has a membership of about 75, and is in 
a flourishing condition financially and other- 



wise. Its motto is "Friendship, Unity and 
Fine Christian Charity." 

In connection with the A. O. H., there is 
a ladies' auxiliary, — the L. A. A. O. H. This 
was organized in Bay City in March, 1903, 
with officers as follows : Mrs. Mary Hurley, 
C. P. ; Mrs. Mary C Haffey, P. ; Miss Nellie 
Noonan, treasurer; I\Iiss Emily C. Pearsall, sec- 
retary ; Miss Mary L. Lynch, R. S. The pres- 
ent ofticers are : Miss Anna Reardon, C. P. : 
Mrs. Mary C. Hafifey, P.: Aliss Estella C 
Brien, treasurer; Miss Emily C. Pearsall, F. 
S. ; and Jtliss !\Iary L. Lynch, R. S. Although 
the organization was formed principally for 
its social features, it carries an insurance bene- 
fit in which its members participate. On St. 
Patrick's Day, 1905, these ladies gave a ban- 
quet for the benefit of Mercy Hospital, from 
which about $300 above the expenses was real- 
ized. 

KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS. 

Bay City Council, No. 414, was instituted 
originally under the name of Valley Council. 
This was in April, 1899. The name was 
changed to Bay City Council in 1892. The 
first officers were : E. J. Schreiber, G. K. ; 
James Donnelly, D. G. K. ; James T. Lawler, 
C. ; Fred ]\Iohr, treasurer ; J. O. Pierce, R. S. ; 
R. Kealey, Jr., F. S. ; Thomas Callaghan, W. 
In 1905 the following officers were elected : 
James Donnelly, G. K. ; John Donovan, D. G. 
K. ; :\Iartin F. McDonell, C. ; Michael P. Law- 
ler, treasurer ; R. A. Campbell, R. S. ; R. Kea- 
ley, Jr., F. S. ; Timothy Kelly, W. The coun- 
cil had 67 charter members; the present mem- 
bership numbers 280. 

CATHOLIC MUTUAL BENEFIT ASS0CI.\TI0N. 

Branch No. 9 was organized in 1879 with 
about 30 members ; it has now about 200 mem- 
bers. Present officers : John V. Hurley, pres- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



339 



ident ; Thomas Mclnerney, vice-president ; 
Richard Kealey, Jr., recording secretary; 
James Tighe, financial secretary ; Robert Mc- 
cauley, treasurer. 

Branch No. 66. (West Side.) Officers: 
August Lambert, president; Frank Flynn, ist 
vice-president, J. B. Duffy, 2nd vice-president ; 
E. A. Moisan, chancelor; Edward Pelette, fi- 
nancial secretary; Frank Stapish, recording 
secretary; C. F. Miller, assistant recording 
secretary ; Thomas Buckley, treasurer. 

Branch No. 82. (Essexville.) Officers: 
John VanPopplen, president; William J. Spier, 
1st vice-president; Frank \^erellan, 2nd vice- 
president; N. E. Ward, financial secretary; 
Francis Huff, recording secretary ; George 
Darling, treasurer. 

LADIES CATHOLIC BENEFIT .\SS0CIATI0N. 

Branch No. 185. Officers: Miss Kate JNIc- 
Inerney, past president ; ]\Irs. Ellen Galarno, 
president; Mrs. Emma Smith, ist vice-presi- 
dent; Mrs. Catherine Skinner, 2nd vice-presi- 
dent; Miss Agnes Upell, recording secretary; 
Miss Elizabeth Winters, financial secretary ; 
Miss Elizabeth Doyle, treasurer. 

The West Side Branch. Officers : Mrs. 
Mary Lambert, president ; ■Margaret Reardon, 
recorder; Mary Pellette. financial recorder; 
Sarah Boucher, treasurer. 

Branch No. 595. (Essexville.) Officers: 
Mrs. Theresa Gariepy, past president ; Mrs. 
Lizzie Guindon, president; Mrs. Mary Darling, 
1st vice-president; Miss Delia Hebert, 2nd vice- 
president; Miss Emma McDonald, recording 
secretary ; Mrs. Marcella DeCourval, financial 
secretary; Mrs. ^lary Ward, treasurer. 

INDEPENDENT ORDER OF b'nAI b'rITTI. 

Bay City Lodge, No. 178, organized in 
1872. Officers: Jacob Miller, president: Will- 



iam Rosenthal, vice-president; William Semp- 
liner, secretary; J. Ablowitz, treasurer. 



Connected with the various churches are a 
large number of societies which have been or- 
ganized for social, educational or benevolent 
purposes, but the scope of our work will scarce- 
ly permit of enumerating them here. Lack of 
space also prevents our mentioning a number of 
social and business organizations. 

THE CENTRAL TR.\DES COUNCIL 

Is the head of organized labor in Greater Bay 
City. It meets every Tuesday, each affiliated 
local union sending three representatives to the 
trades assembly. The council was organized 
in 1886 and has done much for the advance- 
ment of labor's cause in the valley. The an- 
nual celebration of Labor Day is under the 
auspices of this council, and is always an event 
locally. The affiliated membership in 1905 is 
3,244. Trades Council Hall is Bay County's 
temple of labor. Flere assemble as many of the 
local labor organizations as can be accommo- 
dated. 

The officers of the Central Trades Council 
are as follows : R. D. Skelton, president ; C. 
M. Hazen, vice-president : Alvin Walters, finan- 
cial secretary; Ed. W. Haden, recording sec- 
retary: J. W. Hand, treasurer; F. E. Beaudin, 
reading clerk ; Charles Friebe, conductor ; Fred 
Timm, guard. 

The following local unions, affiliated with 
the American Federation of Labor, have rep- 
resentati\es in the Central Trades Council : 

Allied Metal Mechanics. 
Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen. 
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. 
Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. 
Brotherhood of Railway Switchmen. 



340 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Brotherhood of Railway Clerks. 

Boiler Makers. 

Brewery Workers. 

Barbers. 

Blacksmiths. 

Blacksmith helpers. 

Bricklayers and Masons. 

Box Makers. 

Carpenters and Joiners. 

Cigar Makers. 

Coopers. 

Essexville Sugar Workers. 

Electrical Workers. 

Federal Labor Union. , 

Freight Handlers. 

Horse Shoers. 

Iron Ship Builders. 

International Longshoremen. 

International Car Workers. 

Labor Protective, No. 9784. 

Lumber Carriers. 

Musicians. 

Machinists. 

Painters and Decorators. 

Plumbers and Steam Fitters. 

Pavers. 

Retail Clerks. 

Stationary Engineers. 

Stationary Firemen. 

State, Heading and Hoop Makers. 

Street Car Employes. 

Ship Calkers. 

Ship Carpenters. 

Sheet Metal Workers. 

Typographical, No. .81. 

Teamsters. 

Team Drivers and Owners. 

Tinsmiths. 

United Lumber Handlers. 

United Mine Workers, 10 locals. 

Women's Union Label League. 

West Bay City Sugar Workers. 

We herewith give a roster of the officers of 
some of the local unions of Bay county : 

United Mine Workers of America, Local 
No. 1,008 (Weiiona Beach Mine). — James 
Cauley, president ; John Kelley, vice-president ; 
Peter Roberts, financial secretary; Joseph 
Bousted, recording secretary; Al Maloney, 
treasurer. 



Cigar Makers. Local No. 184. — Bert Sage, 
president; Fred Timm, vice-president; A. Loe- 
fler, secretary; T. LeClair, treasurer. 

Carpenters and Joiners, Local No. 116. — 
J. Smith, president; S. Weidemeyer, financial 
secretary; York C. Russling, recording secre- 
tary ; Fred Remender, treasurer. 

Amalgamated Sheet Aletal Workers. — Os- 
car Laderach, president; Charles Meiselbach, 
vice-president; Levi Larkins, secretary; Henry 
McNeil, treasurer. 

Boiler Makers and Iron Ship Builders, 
Local No. 173. — George Henderson, president; 
Peter Provencher, vice-president; Ed. W. Ha- 
den, financial and corresponding secretary; 
William Durochia, treasurer. 

Milkmen. — C. M. Hazen, president; Will- 
iam Curtis, financial secretary; Charles Friebe, 
recording secretary. 

Retail Clerks, Local No. 75.— J. H. Bres- 
sett, president ; A. Lamb, vice-president ; A. H. 
Gansser, financial secretary; T. C. Simons, re- 
cording secretary; William Marcoux, treas- 
urer. 

Barbers. — A. A. Dingman, president; 
Charles Eaton, vice-president ; Fred Hicks, fi- 
nancial secretary ; P. C. Stevens, recording sec- 
retary; Eugene Hutton, treasurer. 

Musicians, Local No. 127. — George A. 
Ott, president ; Fred Nunn, vice-president ; 
Theodore Heine, secretary ; E. O. Hartig, treas- 
urer. 

Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators and 
Paper Hangers, Local No. 557. — Gregory 
Riese, president; Ambrose Rief, recording sec- 
retary; A. J. Busjaski, financial secretary; O. 
P. Worden, treasurer. 

Journeymen Tailors. — S. Mushinski, presi- 
dent ; Henry Lutkemiller, vice-president ; Ed. 
Buchoski, secretary; Herman Miller, treasurer. 
Typographical Union, Local No. 181. — 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



341 



Jerry Hurley, president ; Jim Hand, vice-presi- 
dent ; John Wibert, financial secretary ; Emil 
Beaudin, recording secretary; W. A. Clark, 
treasurer. 

International Brotherhood of Electrical 
Workers, Local No. 150. — James Hodgins, 



president; W. D. Parker, secretary; George 
Afllick, treasurer. 

Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local No. 9. — 
Eli Ingles, president; Joseph Bohn, vice-presi- 
dent; Fred Meyer, recording secretary; Frank 
Davis, treasurer. 



CHAPTER XV. 



Bay County's ^Military Record. 



WAR OF 1812 BLACK HAWK WAR MEXICAN 

WAR. 

Bay County has had among its citizens, vet- 
erans of all wars since the second war with 
Great Britain. Capt. Joseph F. Marsac, one of 
our earliest pioneers, served with distinction in 
the battle of the Thames, War of 181 2, and in 
the Black Hawk War, when he commanded a 
company of veteran Indian fighters, organized 
by Governor Porter. John JMiller, a veteran 
of the War of 1812, came in 1855 as one of the 
first settlers of jMerritt township, where he lived 
to be 91 years old. The late John Grattan 
Sweeney, ex-sheriff, served in the Sixth United 
States Infantry in the Mexican War, and on the 
Indian frontier from 1849 to 1855. John Dus- 
chene, a respected German pioneer of Bay 
county, aged 89 years, is Bay county's sole sur- 
vivor of the Mexican War. 

CIVIL WAR. 

Now bj- our Fathers' ashes ! Where's the spirit 
Of the true hearted and the unshackled gone? 

Sons of old freedom, do we but inherit 
Their names alone? 

—JVhittier. 

Thus sang the heroic bard of New England 
and through all the regions of our land, from 
the Potomac to Lake Superior, and from the 



Atlantic to the Pacific, the fire was kindled that 
burned the fetters which bound a human race, 
and through four years of deadly strife and the 
blood of thousands of heroes the dividing line 
of "Dixie's Land" was wiped away forever, un- 
til today there is indeed "no North, no South." 
The first public utterance among the hand- 
ful of settlers in Bay County was James G. 
Birney's stirring appeal for the down-trodden 
slaves of the South on Independence Day, 1842. 
His was no idle flight of oratory. He had 
practiced the liberation he now preached, and 
this sire of Bay City may well stand with Will- 
iam Lloyd Garrison on history's undying pages, 
as a worthy champion of humanity : 

Champion of those who groan beneath 

Oppression's iron hand ; 
In view of penury, hate and death, 

I see the fearless stand. 
Still bearing up thy lofty brow,. 

In steadfast strength of truth 
In manhood sealing well the vow 

And promise of thy youth. 

—Whitiicr. 

What wonder, then, that this frontier settle- 
ment should have rallied so nobly for the re- 
fense of liberty and unity, during the dismal 
years of the Civil War! The children of 1842 
were the young men of 1861-65, and the nobla 
precept and example of James G. Birney, the 
outcast from his native heath and self-denying 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



345 



pioneer, was rewarded by their devoted service 
in times that tried men's souls. 

The records of the office of the Adjutant 
General of Michigan show that Bay County 
during those four years sent 511 soldiers forth 
to battle, of whom 83 died in service, while 
many more gave up their young lives after be- 
ing mustered out, from wounds and sickness, 
before peace again came to bless our land. When 
we find that the Federal census of i860 gave 
Bay County a population of but 3.164 men, 
women and children, we can more readily ap- 
preciate the sacrifices of men and monej' made 
by this community, that our nation might live, 
one and indivisible. Five hundred and eleven, 
volunteers, out of a population which at no 
time during those years reached 5,000, these 
are historic figures of which we may well be 
proud, and that speak more eloquently of pa- 
triotic devotion than aught else could do. Eigh- 
ty-three names engraved forever upon the he- 
roic records of a grateful republic. Alas, how 
soon their names are forgotten at home, how 
long and how well preserved in the halls of 
state. 

One may search through all the early an- 
nals of this county, without finding a single 
connected record of these 5 1 1 citizens who went 
bravely forward at Lincoln's call for volun- 
teers. Here and there appear isolated records, 
like beacon-lights on dark waters, but no at- 
tempt has aparently been made to preserve the 
names of those who went out from this county 
at their country's call, nor do we know the 
names of those who died at their post of duty. 
Here and there in the disconnected sketches of 
pioneers we find a name worth preserving. 

Gen. Benjamin F. Partridge, born in Shel- 
by, Michigan, April 19, 1822, came to Bay City 
in 1854, where he engaged in lumbering and 
surveying. When the Civil War broke out, he 
was sheriff of Bay County, and later recruited 



men for the i6th Michigan Infantry, being 
commissioned ist lieutenant of Company I, in 
March, 1862. In three years he rose through 
all the intermediate grades to colonel command- 
ing this regiment ; was wounded in the neck in 
the battle of Peeble's Farm, and in March, 1865, 
was breveted brigadier-general. Wounded in 
the head at Quaker Road, he still remained in 
command of his brigade through General 
Grant's final campaign, from Petersburg to 
Appomattox Court House, where his brigad^ 
received 28 of the 71 tattered battle-flags cap- 
tured by the Union Army. His brigade took 
part in the Grand Review in Washington. He 
commanded seven regiments at Louisville, Ken- 
tucky, until July, 1865, when his brigade was 
honorably mustered out. The i6th Michigan 
participated in 54 engagements and battles. 
General Partridge being in all but two of them, 
when he was in hospital. Pre-eminently a 
Michigan and Bay County product, he is a shin- 
ing example of the patriot of 1861, who when 
the cruel war was over went back to the duties 
of civil life here at home with the same energy 
and devotion that had marked his volunteer 
service. 

Col. Henry S. Raymond, who died in De- 
troit in 1904, came to Bay City with his father. 
Col. H. Raymond in 1849. In 1862 he was 
mustered in as captain of Company F, 23rd 
Michigan Infantry, the first complete company 
raised in Bay City and by successive promotions 
in the next three years attained the rank of 
lieutenant-colonel. 

Samuel ]\Iaxwell, brother of the late Judge 
Andrew C. Maxwell, went into the army among 
the first from Bay City, just after he had been 
admitted to tlie bar here ; served four years, and 
in after years became judge of the Supreme 
Court of Nebraska. 

Archibald L. McCormick, the first white 
child born in Michigan, north of the Flint 



344 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



River, often heard James G. Birney's plea for 
liberty and equality to all, when as a boy he 
played among the well-kept vines of the Birney 
cottage, and he sealed the determination of his 
boyhood, to see justice done, with his life at 
the battle of Kenesaw Mountain in Sherman's 
famous "^March to the Sea," while charging a 
battery at the head of his company. He had 
been previously wounded and suffered much in 
Rebel prisons after being found on the battle- 
field by the enemy. 

Such were the men and their heroic deeds 
and such were the sacrifices of many thousands 
who sank down to nameless graves, the individ- 
ual lost in turmoil of strife, but their collective 
achievements in defense of human liberty and 
human rights live on forever. 

In the shady grove at Pine Ridge Cemetery 
stands the plain granite monument, commemor- 
ating the services of our "Boys in Blue," and 
the appreciation of those services by posterity. 
Grouped about it, side by side as in life and war, 
lie the veterans who have answered the last long 
roll, while scattered through every other ceme- 
tery of Bay County lie other veterans in fam- 
ily plats. 

Among those who enlisted from Bay Coun- 
ty and have passed away, we find the names of 
G. A. VanAlstine, Company L, First Alichigan 
Engineers, 1862-65, wounded in the Wilder- 
ness, taken to Andersonville Prison, where he 
suffered until the close of the war, returning 
home in June, 1865, after all his loved ones had 
long ago given him up as dead in a nameless 
grave. Alonzo B. Freeland, Second Michigan 
Infantry, 1861-64, wounded at Petersburg. 
Samuel Benson, Third Michigan Cavalry, serv- 
ing unscathed, 1861-65. J. S. Fox, First ]Mich- 
igan Infantr}?, 1861-65, \vounded at Savage 
Station, spent six months in Rebel prisons and 
one year in hospital. John M. Schucker, Sec- 



ond ?ilichigan Cavalr 



y, 1861-65, wounded at 



Gettysburg ; he was a pioneer who came here in 
1853 and his widow still lives and remembers 
his grave on each Memorial Day. Maj. New- 
comb Clark, lieutenant, 14th Michigan In- 
fantry; promoted major, 102nd United States 
Infantry, Colored, 1861-65. Capt. Albert W. 
Watrous, Fifth United States Infantry. Leon- 
ard Jewell, born in 181 5, who came to Bay City 
in 1844, did not allow his age to deter him from 
serving his country, as in 1862 he enlisted in 
Company A, 14th Michigan Infantry, and 
served until the close of the war. He was the 
oldest recruit from Bay County. Charles W. 
Dease, Company D, loth Michigan Infantry, 
1861-65. \V. E. Carney, 15th Michigan In- 
fantry, 1863-65. Horace B. Mix, Company 
C, United States Engineer, Veteran Corps, 
wounded at Vicksburg, in hospital 11 months, 
served to the end of the war. Daniel Hughes, 
First Mounted Rifles, 1862-65. Charles A. 
Vosburg came here in 1853; he was a member 
of Company D, loth IMichigan Cavalry, 1862- 
65 ; Gabriel Widmer, First United States En- 
gineers, 1864-65. William Stewart, Second 
Michigan Infantry, 1861-64, lost a leg at 
Spottsylvania Court House. Capt. B. W. Mer- 
rick, Company E, Fifth Michigan Infantry, 
shot in the shoulder at Fredericksburg, spent 
five months in hospital and served to 1865. Eu- 
gene Burr, Company C, 30th Michigan Infan- 
try, 1864-65. B. McBrookins was the law 
partner of the late Judge Andrew C. Maxwell 
here ; when war broke out he enlisted and died 
in service. William Catlin, Company A, Fifth 
Michigan Infantry, enlisted in 1861, was 
wounded in the Shenandoah campaign, and 
died January 18, 1865. George E. Aiken was 
in the shoe business here, when he heard the 
call for duty; he served with Battery D, First 
Michigan Light Artillery, 1861-65. Henry 
Fenton, 17th Michigan Infantry, 1862-65, later 
register of deeds for Bay County, died in 1904. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



345 



Henry Lindner, who came here in 1858, served 
with the Fourth Michigan Infantry; was prose- 
cuting attorney for Bay County, 1883-84. 

John Friebe, for nearly 40 years an indus- 
trious citizen of Bay City, typified the world- 
wide spirit of devotion to liberty and equality. 
His German ship, on which he served as sailor, 
hailing from Reugen, happened to be in Wil- 
mington, Delaware, when Fort Sumter was 
fired on. He could speak no English, and it 
was not his country's fight. Yet that quiet, 
peace-loving foreigner promptly enlisted in the 
First Delaware Infantry, served faithfully to 
the end of the war, w'as wounded several times, 
and took part in over 40 engagements, includ- 
ing Gettysburg. He died in January, 1905, 
and on the coming Memorial Day his green 
grave will be accorded the same loving atten- 
tion he himself extended for so many years to 
his comrades that had gone before. L. H. 
Griffin, for many years in the laundry business 
here, was among the first to enlist, serving in 
the First Michigan Cavalry, 1861-66, as order- 
ly sergeant. W. H. Lynch was too small to 
shoulder a musket, so he became drummer in 
the First United States Infantry, was captured 
at Chancellorsville and spent more than a year 
amid the horrors of Andersonville and Belle 
Isle prisons. 

H. C. Meyers enlisted in the United States 
Navy in 1861, but salt water did not agree with 
him. so in 1863 he enlisted in the nth Michigan 
Cavalry, serving until 1865. Lieut. John W. 
Shearer passed through 36 battles and engage- 
ments with the Second Michigan Infantry, 
1861-65. Benno A. Katthain, 14th ^Michigan 
Infantry, 1862-65, was for 30 years piano 
tuner here, (lying in 1904. The memory of 
Hon. James G. Birney, the liberator, was well 
honored by his grandson and namesake, Capt. 
James G. Birney, oldest son of Hon. James Bir- 
nev, who served through the war with the Sev- 



enth Michigan Infantry, and died on the Indian 
frontier in 1869, while serving with United 
States troops. 

Hundreds sleep in our cities of the dead, 
whose achievements in war and peace equal and 
perhaps surpass these isolated service records, 
but these will suffice to preserve for the perusal 
of their surviving comrades, and as an indica- 
tion to posterity of the character and service of 
the veterans we delight to honor. 

Equally instructive and worthy of com- 
memoration are the service records of some of 
our most prominent citizens. Hon. James A. 
Van Kleeck, department commander of Mich- 
igan's G. A. R., 1900-01, served with Company 
D, 17th Michigan Infantry, known as the 
"Stonewall Regiment." He was wounded at 
Antietam and lay among the dead on that 
bloody battlefield until the next day; he was 
then carried into a field hospital arranged in a 
nearby church, where for eight long months he 
hovered between life and death, and to this day 
he suffers continually from the wounds sus- 
tained at Antietam. It is the current comment 
of his comrades in arms, that Comrade Van- 
Kleeck holds the Michigan record for continu- 
ous church attendance, which the popular vet- 
eran acknowledges might be true, eight months 
under the belfry being a rather long devotion. 

Ma j. Lyman G.Willcox, national command- 
er of the National League of Veterans and ' 
Sons, recruited Company B, Third Michigan 
Cavalry, and served with marked distinction to 
the end of the war, being mustered out with the 
brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel. Dr. Henry 
B. Landon, who graduated from the University 
of Michigan in 1861, promptly enlisted in the 
Seventh Michigan Infantry as adjutant, and 
was wounded in the battle of Fair Oaks. Re- 
covering, he again went to the front as army 
surgeon, serving until the brunt of the fighting 
was over in 1864. Judge George P. Cobb 



346 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



served with the Fifth ^Michigan Cavalry, 1863- 
65. Dr. W. E. Vaughn rendered splendid 
service as army surgeon, 1862-65. J- W. 
Knaggs enlisted as private in Company A., 
Fourth Michigan Infantry, was wounded at 
Malvern Hill, losing an arm. After lying seven 
days upon that bloody battlefield, he was taken 
prisoner by the Rebels, confined in Libby 
Prison, later exchanged, and taken to Bellevue 
Hospital, New York City, until his wound had 
healed in 1863. :Maj. E. B. Nugent rose from 
the ranks in the Third Michigan Cavalry, 
through meritorious service, 1861-65. Lieut. 
H. H. Norrington at the age of 16 joined the 
famous Loomis Battery in 1862, participated 
in 32 engagements, was wounded at the battle 
of Stone River, taken prisoner and later ex- 
changed. He received his commission on re- 
commendation of General Reynolds for carry- 
ing dispatches through the enemy's lines, after 
six previous attempts had failed. George W. 
Butterfield, in 1905, national treasurer of the 
Letter Carriers' Association, enlisted in Com- 
pany B, 22nd ]\Iichigan Infantrv, in 1862; was 
later transferred to the Signal Corps, rendered 
distinguished service as wig-wagger for Gen- 
erals Rosecrans, Thomas, Sherman and Grant, 
participating in all the campaigns of the West, 
being present at the surrender of General John- 
ston and the Confederate Army. 

Henry Schindehette, for many years deputy 
United States marshal here, served with the 
24th Michigan Infantry, 1862-64, ^vas wound- 
ed in the hip at Gettysburg, lay eight months in 
hospital, and to this day suffers from that in- 
jury. J. Fred Whittemore served in the Third 
Michigan Cavalry, 1862-65, was prominent in 
the lumber industry here in later years, and died 
in 1904. Chief of Police N. N. Murphy won 
his spurs in the loth New York Artillery, 1862- 
65. Fred W. Barclay left his tug on the Sag- 
inaw River to serve in "Uncle Sam's" navv. 



1863-65. Lafayette N. Brown, the dean of 
Bay City's mail carriers, and the "Uncle Sam" 
of all public occasions, his figure, feature and 
chin whiskers being the real "Uncle" counter- 
feit, served with the Seventh Michigan Infan- 
try, 1861-65. James A. McKnight and Henry 
FI. Aplin served in the i6th Michigan Infantry, 
1862-65, and George A. Allen in Company A, 
lOth Michigan. Inf., 1861-65. -^^^ three came 
here when peace returned, and for 40 years 
have been prominent in the affairs of the West 
Side. Oliver H. Irons, 23rd Michigan Infan- 
try, lost his eyesight through wounds, and in 
1905, after 40 years of sightless existence, is 
still a public-spirited and cheerful citizen, en- 
joying the most liberal pension on the local 
rolls, as a slight remembrance of the gratitude 
of the country he served so well and for which 
he gave so much. Justice of the Peace W. E. 
Callender served with the Sixth United States- 
Cavalry in 1861-62, later being promoted cap- 
tain of the Ninth Battery, Veteran Artillery, 
1863-65. Truman Rundel, Company H., 23rd 
Michigan Infantry, was wounded at Nashville, 
and suffered for 1 1 months in hospital. John 
C. Rowden, respected pioneer of Auburn, was 
with Company F, 23rd Michigan Infantry, and 
was wounded at Franklin and Alatoona Pass. 
His neighbor, Henry W. Hopler, served side 
by side with him, 1862-65, being in every en- 
gagement of his company. Augustus Horn,- 
Company E, 22nd Michigan Infantry, 1862-65, 
was wounded in the collar-bone at Chicka- 
mauga. George A. Schultz was among the first 
to volunteer from here, serving with Company 
K, Second Michigan Cavalry, 1861-65. Lu- 
man S. Harris. loth Michigan Infantry, was 
permanently disabled at the bloody battle of 
Shiloh. William Maxon served in the loth 
Michigan Cavalry, 1861-65. 

Capt. S. E. Burnham, First Michigan At- 
tillery, wounded at Petersburg; Capt. A. J. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



347 



Cooke, 148th New York Infantry, wounded at 
Petersburg, suffering from that bullet in the 
chest to this day : Dr. Robert W. Erwin, Lieut. 
H. F. Emery, Capt. Orrin Bump, Lieut. E. T 
Carrington, Lieut. j\l. M. Andrews, Lieut. H. 
E. Meeker, Capt. George E. Turner, prominent 
since the close of the war in Bay City's material 
welfare and prosperity, are today honored mem- 
bers of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion 
of the United States, membership in itself be- 
ing a living testimony of valiant service. 

Hon. Chester L. Collins just elected cir- 
cuit judge; Larry McHugh, Dr. H. B. Hulbert, 
Dr. C. \Y. ]Maxon, Capt. Richard Armstrong, 
O. F. Kellogg, J. N. Syrmeyer, James McCabe, 
Ex-Sheriff Benson Conklin, H. P. Warfield, 
Solomon W'ilhelm, Marion A. Randall, Henry 
W. Sims, E. \V. Oakes, — these are among the 
several hundred veterans who enlisted in other 
States, and after the cruel war was over en- 
tered again upon the pursuits of peace, choosing 
this busy valley for their future home, and they 
are today among our most respected citizens 
and honored veterans. Their ranks are thin- 
ning fast, but the results of their patriotic serv- 
ice will live forever. 

Judge Isaac Alarston, T. C. Phillips and 
Ransom P. Essex were the enrolling officers 
for Bay County in 1863, this being the 85th 
Sub-District of Michigan. In 1864 the quota 
of able-bodied men eligilile for war service had 
been practically exhausted in this village, and, 
through the representation of this toard, Bay 
County's quota that year was reduced by 45, a 
saving in bounties of something like $15,000. 

Hon. James Shearer was alderman in De- 
troit during the war. So exacting was his 
work for the families of soldiers, that he gave 
up his thriving business for the time being and 
devoted himself exclusively to this work. Re- 
peatedly he visited the battle-fields and hospitals 
of the South, to provide for the sick and 



wounded, end everything possible was done for 
the soldiers and their families here at home. 
Verily, behind the dramatic incidents of the 
battle-fields, there was also much heroic devo- 
tion, much devoted work and many self-sacri- 
fices. 

Bay County from the first was blessed with 
a band of noble women, as brave, energetic and 
devoted as their fathers, brothers, sons and hus- 
bands, and during all the dark years of the war 
they willingly gave up the best of earth, for 
their country's sake. Volumes might be writ- 
ten of the noble work done by these good 
women. How they carried on the work on the 
farm left in their charge, or worked and eked 
out a meager living in the village, while their 
protectors dared everything for the sake of 
justice, liberty and equality. How they or- 
ganized sewing circles, furnishing bandages 
and wearing apparel for the "Boys in Blue," 
raised money for hospital purposes and for 
presents at stated periods to the men at the 
front. How they kept their troubles at home 
to themselves, offering nothing but encourage- 
ment to their loved ones, thus keeping alive the 
spirit that finally conquered for the right. In 
these and a thousand other ways, the good 
women of our land and of Bay County con- 
tributed much to the final success of a cause 
proven just by the evolutions of more than four 
decades. No uK.inuments or medals mark the 
heroism displayed by our true women in times 
that tried men's souls, but the gratitude and 
recognition of a nation will endure while life 
lasts, — a more enduring monument than slabs 
of marble or medals of bronze. -\ million men 
fought and thousands died, but back of them all 
stood other millions and other thousands, whO' 
upheld the hands that carried the muskets and 
sabers, and all of these are blessed today by a 
united, happy and prosperous people. The 
blood of the sons of Bay County was not shed 



.348 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



in vain, and all the sacrifices of our loyal men 
and women have brought indeed a rich reward. 
Long may the memory of their noble deeds sur- 
vive to bless our land ! 

SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR. 

More than 7,2 years had passed, since the 
hosts of the blue and gray had been called home 
to other duties, less dangerous, but none the less 
important and honorable. Peace brought 
plenty! the blood-bought new era swept away 
the prejudice and sectionalism of half a cen- 
rtury. Progress andi advancement on e\-ery 
field of human endeavor brought with it an 
■era of industrial activities and development, 
unprecedented in the history of the world. Com- 
merce and industry had long since wiped out 
.Dixie's line, and from the Gulf of Mexico to 
the Great Lakes, and from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, peace and plenty reigned. 

Little did our nation dream of things to 
come, when Father Time ushered in the new 
vp-r of promise, 1898. True, for many years 
■our people had shuddered at the misgovernment 
^of the Spanish government in Cuba. Until the 
question of State's rights and slavery were set- 
tled here at home, we cared little about the woes 
of our island neighbors. 

But since all was bliss and happiness at 
home, the shrieks of anguish of the Cuban peo- 
ple were heard more distinctly, and the martyr 
President, William McKinley, determined to 
learn for himself the exact condition of things 
on the beautiful and rich island, long since 
named the "Gem of the Antilles." Official inves- 
tigation proved to the world that things were 
even worse than supposed. Weyler, Blanco, 
and other despotic governors were drenching 
the island in blood, while the revolutionists led 
by Gomez fought grimly from the mountain 
fastnesses of the interior for liberty and justice. 



Li February the battleship "Maine" was 
sent to Havana to protect the lives and property 
of American citizens. On the night of Febru- 
ary 15, 1898, while most of the fated crew were 
asleep in quarters, this fine battleship, with its 
complement of brave blue-jackets, was sunk and 
utterly destroyed by a submarine mine, 266 
lives being lost, among them Seaman Hawkins 
and Elmer W. Meilstrup, of Bay City. The 
latter, a son of J. S. Meilstrup, for years man- 
ager for the Sage Company's interests on the 
West Side, was a High School graduate, and a 
member of the Peninsular Military Company, 
when in 1897 he joined the navy. \Villiam 
Mattison, in 1905 color-bearer of the local mili- 
tary company, was asleep in his hammock on 
the "Maine," when the terrific explosion hurled 
him overboard, where he was picked up by a 
rescuing party. For months he suffered terri- 
bly from the scalds, burns, and wounds from 
slivers, caused by the explosion but eventually 
his rugged physique won out, and today he is 
following his daily vocation in his old home, 
a living reminder of the dastardly crime 
against our country, which stirred our country 
even more suddenly than did the echoes of the 
firing on Fort Sumter. 

The death of Hawkins and Meilstrup 
brought the tragedy into our very homes, and 
nowhere was the resentment stronger than in 
Bay County. For 24 years Bay City had con- 
tributed through the Peninsular Military Com- 
pany its mite to the rather neglected and thank- 
less State military service, but after the blowing 
up of the "Maine," when war became a cer- 
tainty, the community felt assured, that here as 
in 1 861 Bay County would do its full duty. 

The Peninsular Military Company, now 
Company B, Third Infantry, Michigan Na- 
tional Guard, was organized in November, 
1873, by the members of the I. K. U. K. Club, 
a social organization, having in its ranks many 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



349- 



of the promising young business and profes- 
sional men of the thriving kmiljer town. Those 
were the years of reconstruction throughout 
the land, and the volunteer service, which had 
been utterly neglected after the close of the 
Civil War, was just being reorganized by Mich- 
igan. On April 13, 1874, the Peninsulars were 
mustered into the State service, as Company D, 
Third Regiment, M. S. T. Frank H. Black- 
man, now of Detroit, a veteran of the Sixth 
Maine Infantry, was chosen captain; L. A. 
Pratt, today our leading architect, was chosen 
1st lieutenant; and T. K. Harding, now chief 
of the Fire Department, was chosen 2nd lieu^ 
tenant, with G. Harry Shearer, ist sergeant. 
Charles R. Hawley, who in the next 22 years 
rose from sergeant to brigade commander of 
the Michigan National Guard. Ex-Congress- 
man T. A. E. Weadock, J. S. McNeil and 
Frank Denio were sergeants. J. L. Stoddard was 
president ; Edgar A. Cooley, vice-president ; 
W. G. McMath, secretary; and Judge Thomas 
E. Webster, treasurer, of the charter organiza- 
tion, while Charles D. Vail, father of the com- 
pany, and in 1905 still in active business; C. C. 
Whitney, J. F. Eddy, B. Burton, Mendel J. 
Bialy, afterward State Senator ; R. C. Bialy, F. 
S. Pratt, J. A. McKay, Lyman F. Beach, J. K. 
jMason, R. B. Dolsen, L. Dolsen and many an- 
other of Bay City's prominent business and pro- 
fessional men, in the intervening years, were on 
the muster roll of this company 30 years ago. 
In 1877 they were ordered to Detroit where 
riots were caused by railroad difficulties. In 
1 88 1, under Capt. C. R. Hawley, the Penin- 
sulars were the body-guard of Governor Be- 
gole at the centennial celebration upon the bat- 
tle-field of Yorktown, Virginia. During the 
strikes in the sawmill industry along the shore 
in 1884-86, the Peninsulars were on active duty 
in command of another Civil War veteran, Cap- 
tain H. P. Warfield, in 1905, superintendent of 



Elm Lawn Cemetery, and the members of the- 
company acquitted themselves in this trying 
duty with commendable good judgment and 
efficient performance of duty. In the next lo- 
years the routine of barrack drilling was varied 
only by occasional socials. The annual encamp- 
ments, from 1 89 1, when the writer enlisted, to 
1900, were held at Island Lake with the excep- 
tion of 1898-99, when the volunteers had more 
important work to do. 

Fortunately for Michigan, the brigade in 
1896-97 had the benefit of co-operation from 
the regular army, the 19th United States In- 
fantry taking part in the field camps. Maj. 
Charles A. Vernon, then as now, was the effi- 
cient regular army instructor detailed to Mich- 
igan, and General Hawley of Bay City had 
learned much in the 22 years of State service, 
which he put into practical execution during 
his command of Michigan's volunteers, while- 
the commander-in-chief. Governor Hazen S. 
Pingree, was himself a Civil War veteran. 
Hence when the 32 years of peace were broken 
by the appalling disaster of the "Maine," the 
local military company, and the four regiments 
in Michigan, were in a high state of efficiency. 

When in March, 1898, it became certain 
that war was inevitable, there was a rush of 
young men to the colors, and hundreds had to 
be turned away, because each company was al- 
lowed but 112 men. Many of those unable to 
join the Peninsulars went into other regiments, 
regulars and volunteers, while still others joined 
the navy, so that Bay County furnished in the 
four short months of actual combat about 300 
men, many of whom later went to the Philip- 
pines. 

On April 26, 1898, the Peninsular ^Military 
Company, later Company C, 33d Michigan 
Volunteer Infantry, and now Company B, 
Third Infantry, Michigan National Guard, 
answered the call of President McKinley for 



^50 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



service against Spain. It was a clay ne^■er to 
be forgotten by those in line. Thousands of 
people thronged the streets, business was sus- 
pended, cannons roared, bands played and fire- 
works added to the din, while the decorations 
in red, white and blue made one think it might 
be a Fourth of July celebration. Led by the 
regimental band and accompanied by the Vet- 
eran Corps of the Peninsulars, who throughout 
the war looked after the families and relatives 
of the men on duty in Cuba, and by many civic 
societies, the men destined to see the most stir- 
ring events at Santiago marched from the old 
barracks on Washington avenue and Ninth 
street down Center avenue to Jackson street 
and the Michigan Central Railroad Depot, 
every inch of the way through a mass of shout- 
ing, cheering, and even tearful thousands. 

The muster roll of the Peninsulars on that 
day was as follows : Captain, W. D. Parke ; 
lieutenants, — C. H. Dumont and G. A. Mand- 
ley; ist sergeant. A. H. Gansser; cpiartermaster 
sergeant, J. T. Sills ; sergeants, — H. E. Burton, 
W. N. Schultz, A. R. Frantz, R. V. Miller, H. 
J. Hoffman and J. H. Alberts; Corporals, — C. 

D. Webster, A. N. Rhodes, Frank Koth, G. 
T. Whaler, E. I\I. Jones, Louie Irons, J. E. 
Brockway and R. S. Youngs; musicians. — W'. 
S. Kurzrock and P. M. Lawrence; privates, — 

E. A. Annis. George Brisbeau, Henry Camp- 
bell, C. C. Carter, F. \V. Crosbie, Charles C. 
Cuthbert, G.A.Cobb, J. J. Coleman, Orrin Cole- 
man, J. C. Delaney, W. FI. Bollard { died in 
Cuba), E. C. Eickemeyer, J. AI. Goepfert, Emil 
Gelinas, A. Grimm, Stanley Gilkey, H. J. Gra- 
ham, G. R. Hoover, F. L. Harwood (died in 
Philippines), F. J. Haut, H. F. Kutella, Fred 
Karl, H. J. Koth, John Karpus, L. C. Knack, F. 
G. Leser, Florenz Lutzke, F. Marshall, D. H. 
MacMillan (died in 1905), C. J. Mclntyre, J. 
W. McKee (died in 1904), \\"illiam Metzger, 



C. C. Merritt, F. R. [Merrick, W. R. 
Misener, A. McClellan. H. J. C. Maus, A. 
L. Montgomery. C. W. ^Marshall, Chester 
Nolan, J. J. Parker, FI. S. Perry, A. Potter, 
H. H. Presley, G. G. Reinhardt, J. K. 
Reigel, H. E. Rogers, William Risto, J. S. 
Sills, C. C. Stockford, E. A. Spier, J. H. 
Schultz, J. Schettler, H. H. Schroeder, W. H. 
Thompson (died in 1898), Roy Verity, E. A. 
VanDyke, W. F. VanDyke, C. L. Walk, B. 
\Valker. F. B. \\'iley, G. A. Wright, F. A. 
Wells, and J. F. Berdan, the last named a Civil 
War veteran, who was later barred on account 
of the age limit. A number of these were called 
home during May for family reasons, and a 
number were rejected in the physical examina- 
tions conducted by regular army surgeons and 
State appointees. ]\Iuch fault was found at the 
time with the haste and apparent inaccuracy of 
this vital test of physical fitness for the rigors 
of a campaign in Cuba. Since the average 
examined was more than one per minute, the 
cause of many of these mistakes is apparent. 
To fill these vacancies, recruiting was carried 
on the latter part of May and the following ad- 
ditional members were mustered in at Island 
Lake: M. Anderson, J. A. Brown. W. U. H. 
Carpenter, Charles Calkins (died in Philip- 
pines, 1899), E. S. Dunbar, R. M. Dawley, W. 
H. Ellis, E. A. Foss, A. E. Fessette (died in 
Cuba), H. D. Fenton, P. E. Eiliatrault, F. B. 
Hammond, F. E. Bence (died in 1902), P. F. 
Hendrie, A. B. Kelley, F. A. Greening, J. B. 
Galloway, J. L. Hiliker, H. Hallead, W. E. 
Hurlbert, J. W. Hutchins, W. E. Johnson, G. 
P. Labadie, F. Langstaff, A. A. Lyon, C. F. 
Laframboise, C. L. Martin, J. Lester, D. L. 
Meyers, Fred Meyers (died in 1902), A. G. 
Nobeck, Al. Ostrom, C. A. Pusey, Burt Piper, 
C. A. Pringle, W. Pringle (died in 1900), A. 
Pellow, G. L. Parent (died in Philippines, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



351 



1900), G. F. Parsons, A. Rouse, J. T. Sills 
(died in Cuba), R. E. Verity, H. L. Warren, 
L. Wiles and T. AI. McKee. 

The following from Bay County served in 
other companies of the 33rd Michigan : Com- 
pany B, M. Highland ; Company E, Bert F. 
Becker (died at Montauk Point, 1898), F. 
Heike, L. G. Wilkinson, R. N. Colburn, F. M. 
Schindehette and G. Rabideau; Company M, 
J. E. Rabideau and C. B. Mervick. 

The 33rd Michigan Infantry Band, T. W. 
Goldsmith, drum major, was largely composed 
of Bay City musicians. Sergt. Frank Heric, 
now in the Philippines with the regulars, was 
chief musician, and Jesse \\'agar, now leader of 
the band here, was principal musician. Among 
the musicians who stirred the rocks of Cuba by 
their martial airs were : E. B. Hartig, Charles 
Hartig, Victor Heric, Nicholas Heric, Joseph 
Lafountain, A. Carrier, Frank Sharpe (died 
in Cuba), George E. Smart, J. Muschall, J. 
Schopski, W. Barber, P. Roeder, Ed. Nunn, 
■G. E. Nunn, R. R. Lemke and A. Goslar. Va- 
cancies on the band were latter filled by enlist- 
ment of musicians from other parts of the 
State. The band throughout 1898 held a high 
place for proficiency, wdierever it had occas- 
ion to show its merit. 

The events in the Spanish-American war 
moved fast indeed, and thanks particularly to 
our jolly tars, the war was over in less time 
than it required in ages gone to begin the pre- 
liminaries. On April 11, President McKinley 
asked Congress for power to intervene in Cuba, 
which was ordered on April 19th. Our ultima- 
tum was wired Minister Woodford at Madrid 
April 20th, and promptly rejected by the haugh- 
ty Dons. On April 21st at 7 A. M., war was 
declared, and within 24 hours Admiral Samp- 
son's fleet moved on Havana. On April 22nd 
the gunboat "Nashville" fired the first shot at 
a land battery near Havana. On April 23rd 



President McKinley asked for 125,000 volun- 
teers, a figure somewhat in excess of the full 
strength of our country's National Guard. 

On April 26th Michigan's five regiments 
were mobilized at Island Lake. Bay City's 
contingent was given a grand ovation when the 
troop train pulled out of the depot, but among 
the cheering thousands were many aching 
hearts. Every town and village in Michigan, 
through which these trains passed that day, 
added their mite of music and cheering, prov- 
ing conclusively that our people were a unit 
in prosecuting this war. The first two weeks 
in camp were wet, raw and cold, so that from 
the first the volunteers had to contend with ad- 
verse elements. Rifle practice and battle exer- 
cises were the order of the day for the next five 
weeks. 

On April 29th Michigan's Naval Reserves 
left for Newport News, where they manned 
the auxiliary cruiser "Yosemite." Bay City 
was represented there by E. E. Anneke, W. B. 
Fox, J. C. Irvine, John Ruge and M. R. 
Tousey. 

The realities of war were brought to the 
camp at Island Lake on the e\'ening of May 
2nd, when suddenly the long roll was sounded 
and the five regiments assembled before head- 
quarters to hear the glad tidings of Admiral 
Dewey's naval victory at Manila on May i. 
There was little sleep for the boys in blue on 
that memorable night. On May nth Ensign 
Bagley and four men were killed in a naval at- 
tack on Cardenas. Meanwhile the regular army 
examiners and mustering officers began the 
work of selecting the four regiments of 12 com- 
panies each apportioned to Michigan by the 
War Department. 

On May 19th the 31st Michigan Infantry 
left camp for Chickamauga, where the regiment 
was destined to remain until the war closed, 
when it spent several months in Cuba on gar- 



352 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



risoii duty. On May 19th the 32nd Michigan 
Infantry left camp for Tampa, Florida, and 
as that was the naval base for the planned at- 
tack on Havana, this regiment appeared most 
likely to see immediate action. Circumstances 
later prevented the attack on Havana, and this 
regiment spent the entire time in camp. Both 
of these regiments had a number of men from 
Bay County. On May 19th Admiral Cervera 
and his fated fleet entered Santiago harbor, and 
on May 27th Admiral Schley with 12 ships of 
war began the long vigil, whose tragic ending 
the Bay County contingent was to witness at 
Santiago little more than a month later. 

President McKinley's second call for troops 
brought out the 35th Michigan Infantry in 
June, in which a score of Bay County men en- 
listed. 

On May 28th the 33d Michigan Infantry 
with the Peninsulars left camp for the army 
corps rendezvous 12 miles from Washington, 
the historic battle-field of Bull Run, named in 
honor of Michigan's Secretary of War, "Camp 
Alger." The last farewells were said on the 
Sunday previous when a large contingent of 
Bay County people witnessed the last review 
of the regiment on Island Lake's famous parade 
grounds. Another ovation greeted the regi- 
ment oni its speedy trip through Michigan, 
Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia, South vying 
with North to honor the nation's volunteers. 
At Dunloring, Virginia, the rigors of war serv- 
ice began in earnest. A wearisome march over 
Virginia's dusty roads brought the Michigan 
boys, now largely recruits, to a wilderness of 
of scrub woods and marsh, where they had to 
work for days clearing away the underbrush, 
amid Virginia's tropical heat, before a drill 
ground and camp were finally established. Hob- 
son's brilliant attempt to block the harbor en- 
trance at Santiago June 3rd electrified Camp 



Alger, and the cheering thousands in blue and 
khaki clamored loudly "On to Cuba !" 

On June 7th the 34th Michigan Inf. also 
arrived at Camp Alger, camping just across 
the highway from the 33rd, while the Ninth 
Massachusetts Infantry to the south was bri- 
gaded with them under Gen. H. M. Duffield of 
Detroit, a Michigan Civil War veteran. Scarce- 
ity of water was the main drawback to Camp 
Alger, every spring being zealously guarded, 
and the Michigan bovs carried their water 
supply many miles in the blazing sun. Dysen- 
tery and typhoid soon invested the camp. News 
from the front however kept all on edge. 

On June loth the United States marines 
landed at Guantanamo, and on June 13 th Gen- 
eral Shaffer's expedition started for Santiago 
from Key West, Florida, landing at Baiquiri, 
June 22nd. Little did the Michigan boys then 
dream that in a few weeks they would be with 
him before the Cuban stronghold. On June 
2 1 St the writer was in a telegraph station near 
Washington, wiring his daily budget of news 
from the Michigan regiments to our native 
State, when the ticker at division headquarters 
announced an order from Secretary Alger for 
the 33rd and 34 Michigan Infantry to prepare 
to reinforce Shafter before Santiago. When he 
announced this news in camp, the boys were 
skeptical, and yet overjoyed at the prospect. 
That night the official orders were issued, and 
early next morning the 33rd and one battalion 
of the 34th left for Newport News where on 
June 23rd they boarded the auxiliary cruiser 
"Yale," formerly the ocean greyhound "New 
York," and on June 25th the rest of the 34th 
Michigan and Ninth Massachusetts followed, 
embarking June 26tli at Newport News on the 
auxiliary cruiser "Harvard," Captain Cotton 
now admiral United States Navy, commanding. 
Many of the men had visited Washington dur- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



353 



ing the stay at Camp Alger, liaci roamed over 
the battle-field of Bull Run, been wearied by 
camp routine, and amid the cheering thousands 
who bade them farewell none were happier 
than the men who went forth to an uncertain 
fate in a foreign isle. The writer will never 
forget the ovation of the Virginians along the 
line of railway, particularly at Richmond, 
where cheering thousands thronged about Rob- 
ert E. Lee's statue as we swept by. We had 
camped between regiments from Virginia, Ten- 
nessee. Missouri and Kentucky, had rallied with 
them at the midnight alarms, "hiked" and 
drilled with them in Camp Alger's maneuvers, 
shared with them the little comforts of camp, 
and we realized fully there was "no North, no 
South" in this war, but a united country had 
rallied around the old flag. At Fortress Mon- 
roe we entered the w-ar zone. American bat- 
tleships patrolled the coast, torpedo boats flitted 
about the mines that guarded the entrance to 
the Norfolk Navy Yard, where two monster 
battleships, the "Kentucky" and "Kearsarge," 
were on the stocks. Since so many Russian and 
Japanese ships in 1904 ran foul of their own 
mines, we can congratulate ourselves that in all 
our coast guarding not a single ship or life was 
lost in 1898. 

On June 27th the Michigan regiments 
landed at Baiquiri, the Bay County contingent 
seeing for the first time the scenes of Shafter's 
landing, Hobson's adventure, Morro Castle, 
Sampson's fleet. General Garcia's ragged Cuban 
insurgents and Spanish blockhouses, so effective 
against prowling Cubans, but easily demolished 
by the American fleet. Our fondest wish was 
realized. W'e were on Cuban soil, and in the 
very midst of the stirring war drama about 
Santiago. It took us many hours to land food, 
ammunition and arms through the roaring 
ocean surf, and at nightfall we pitched camp in 
a pretty palm grove. The first regular army 

20 



officer to look us over shook his head when he 
noticed our antiquated Springfield rifles, with 
smoking powder ammunition. He said it was 
a shame to send men to Santiago with those old 
blunderbusses, when thousands of Krag-Jor- 
gensen repeating rifles lay idle in the arsenals 
at home. He told us of the skirmish at Las 
Guasimas. June 24th and General ChafYee's vic- 
tory at Sevilla, June 25th driving the Span- 
iards back to El Poso, General Shafter's army 
gradually advancing each day toward the San 
Juan Hills and El Caney, which were plainly 
visible from the Meastro Mountains on our 
right. That night lizards, land crabs and a 
myriad of other and strange beasts and creep- 
ers made life miserable for the sons of Bay 
County, and at midnight a terrific rain-storm, 
a veritable cloud-burst, made camp unbearable 
and the real hardships of campaigning in a trop- 
ical climate began in earnest. Next morning 
the Michiganders changed to high ground, 
spent house in policing camp, furnished General 
Shaffer with men for the water-works pump- 
ing station at Siboney and railroad hands for 
the narrow gauge railroad running toward 
Morro Castle from the copper mines in the 
mountains. Trenches were dug on the ocean 
shore for the hospitals, already filled with the 
wounded of the early skirmishes. W'agons 
were loaded for the front, guards placed on the 
hills toward Morro Castle and every man felt 
that a crisis was at hand. 

The Cubans meanwhile made the camp 
disagreeable with their skulking and pilfering, 
loud boasts and ravenous appetites being ap- 
parently the stock in trade of most of these 
Cuban warriors, armed with machetes of huge 
dimensions. Only a few had serviceable rifles. 
The arms of wounded Americans were given 
General Garcia's band, and his elite did good 
service scouting on the front and flank of the 
Spaniards, a service which they could better 



354 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



perform than the Americans because they knew 
the trails through the shaparel, the rank under- 
growth of cactus, vines and creepers, which 
covered the country back of Santiago, where in 
times of peace stood rich sugar plantations with 
thousands of acres of sugar cane. \Var"s hor- 
rors were everywhere in evidence here, but this 
handful of Cubans saved the reputation of their 
countrymen at Santiago, the majority of whom 
were lazy and shiftless negroes. 

While guarding the shore, the Michigan 
volunteers witnessed several bombardments of 
]\Iorro Castle by the American fleet. After the 
surrender an inspection of the Spanish batteries 
by the writer showed the mass of shells did but 
little damage. Between the thundering cannon, 
screeching shells, blazing sun, dirty water and 
drenching rains, we soon learned that General 
Sherman knew whereof he spoke, when he said 
"War is hell !" But we were still vigorous, the 
war panorama about us was inspiring, and the 
nearness of the foreign enemy lent zest to all 
our work. 

On the night of June 30th final preparations 
were made for the assault on Santiago. The 
Michigan regiments, the rest of the 34th just 
landing, were ordered to assault at daybreak, 
Aquadores. a fortified height defending the 
crossing of Aquadores River, east of Morro 
Castle, while the regulars under Chafifee. Kent, 
Wheeler, Lawton, Sumner and Capron's artil- 
lery, assaulted San Juan Hill and El Caney, 
That night Bay City's band played "Michigan, 
my Michigan," while the preparations for the 
next day's battle went forward, and never did 
that air of our far-away home sound more mar- 
tial and inspiring. 

At break of day. July i. 1898. the Michigan 
troops were moved in the little ore cars to a 
bend below Aquadores River, and by 5 A. M. 
they were under fire from the Spanish battery. 



They kept under cover until 7 A. M., when 
they marched up the railroad cut, where a shell 
exploded over Company L, killing four and 
wounding and maiming as many more. Ex- 
posed to artillery fire without being able to reply 
with the old Springfields at that distance, there 
was nothing for it, but to seek cover and ad- 
vance among the rocks along shore. When the 
river was reached the bridge was found missing, 
the Cuban scouts had vanished with the first 
exploding shell, and reluctantly enough the 
[Michigan regiments ended their diversion at 
this point. The last two battalions of the 34th 
finished landing before noon, and marched to 
the support of the 33rd, meeting them on their 
return to Siboney, where the 33rd was ordered 
to guard prisoners taken that day at El Caney, 
while the 34th was ordered forward to support 
General Shafter's thin blue line in the Spanish 
entrenchments taken that bloody day on the 
heights of San Juan. All night long the regi- 
ment marched over the 12 miles of mountain 
trail to San Juan, and at daybreak it was greet- 
ed with stray shells from Santiago, one of which 
exploded under the gun of Capron's battery, 
killing the entire crew. For the next two miles 
of the advance the regiment was under a hail 
of Mauser bullets, with occasional screeching 
shells, fired from the Spaniards' trenches just 
outside of Santiago, but as they were fired at an 
angle at San Juan, all went wild and high over 
our heads. That did not prevent us from duck- 
ing occasionally, when the sound came nearer, 
or a ricochet bullet whizzed past. Only a few 
minor wounds were sustained by the 1,000 
Michiganders marching past the "bloody bend," 
taken the day before by the Americans with 
much loss of life, and by noon we were in the 
rear of General Kent's division on San Juan 
Hill, where we were kept in reserve, our smok- 
ing powder and short-range rifles being con- 



AXD REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



355 



sidered more of a drawback than help in this 



modern warfare at long ranges. 



That night 



we rallied in the trenches with the regulars, 
when the Spaniards made a desperate charge on 
General Chaffee's line, but American machine 
guns and rifle fire drove the Spaniards back, 
just as they did on July loth, when the writer 
witnessed the last desperate charge of the enemy 
■on the bloody angle. 

Next morning we heard the roar of the 
naval guns ofif shore, while the Bay City con- 
tingent on provost duty at Siboney saw the first 
movements of the American fleet on that mem- 
orable July 3rd, when Cervera's fleet was sunk 
by Schley and Sampson. We had been without 
food, save what we found on the battle-field, 
since June 30th, and sleep was out of the ques- 
tion on San Juan Hill, without shelter in the 
driving rain of the night and under the blazing 
sun by day, trench digging under such condi- 
tions being a real hardship, but we all cheered 
and cheered again, when the truth passed down 
the line toward evening, that the fleet of the 
enemy was no more. Pack mule trains rushed 
up and down the mountain trails that night, 
bringing ammunition and much needed food, 
and the writer celebrated that July 4th by drink- 
ing a cup of black coffee, and munching three 
hardtacks under a ceiba tree behind our sand- 
bag entrenchments, the first good lunch in three 
days. Later he carried dispatches and mail to 
Siboney, telling the people in Michigan that all 
was well with us, and that the enemy were ours., 

Then followed two weeks of scouting 
through the San Juan \''alley, General Pando 
having reinforced the Spaniards in Santiago 
with 8,000 men, and Shafter feared another at- 
tempt to break through his investing lines. On 
Sunday, July 17, 1898, the writer, with i.ooo 
other Michigan boys witnessed the surrender of 
the Spaniards in the valley below San Juan, a 



historic e\-ent, never to be forgotten. The next 
day we visited the city in search of medicine 
for some sick comrades. Meanwhile the Bay 
City company and band had been on duty night 
and day, nursing the wounded, who came by 
hundreds from the front, and guarding several 
hundred Spanish prisoners taken in battle, who 
were placed inside of wire entanglements with 
strong guards standing by day in the blazing 
hot sun, and by night amid the mists of the 
ocean, and the pouring rains of Cuba's rainy 
season. Here were the horrors of war, without 
its heroic counterparts, hence a most trying 
service for Michigan's volunteers. 

Yellow fever in a mild form, mountain 
fever, ague and malaria, the dangers always be- 
setting people coming from a temperate zone to 
the tropics during the rainy season, filled the 
hospitals and decimated the ranks. At one time 
in the middle of July two-thirds of the Bay 
City contingent were detailed for hospital duty, 
the bandmen acting as nurses on transports that 
brought the wounded and very sick to Newport 
News and other harbors. As the heat and rain;, 
increased, the Army of Santiago, especially the 
volunteer regiments, became a mere hospital 
camp, and soon were heard in the Michigan 
camps the sad notes of "Taps," as some poor 
boy, a thousand miles from home, was lowered 
uncermoniously into a grave on Cuban soil, 
which his sacrifice had helped to free forever 
from the tyrant's heel. A year later a grateful 
State sent emmissaries to Santiago who looked 
up the graves that had been marked with crude 
wood markers, and brought all the dead back 
to their native heath. Some sleep in the Na- 
tional Cemetery on Arlington Heights ; others 
were brought back to Bay City and other home 
stations of the departed comrades. 

After the Spaniards had been sent home and 
peace declared August 12th, the sole wish of 



356 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



the survivors, wasting away in the torrid cH- 
mate, with inadequate medical suppHes, plenty 
but poor food, knowing their work was done, 
was to go back to a more congenial clime. 
About August 20th the first transports started 
for home with fever stricken regiments, and on 
August 25 th the long expected order came for 
the Michigan regiments to break camp, bum 
their fever infected clothing and stores, leave 
behind the weakest men in hospital, under good 
care, and board the several boats assigned them, 
the Peninsulars getting assigned to the "Har- 
vard," while the writer nursed some of the 45 
invalids on the old cattle-boat "Santiago" from 
Santiago to the detention camp at jNIontauk 
Point, Long Island, where the cool breezes of 
the Atlantic were expected to do what medicine 
and nursing in many instances had failed to do, 
— restore health and vitality. After rather 
squally voyages all the companies were reuni- 
ted here, and for the first time in many weeks 
loved ones at home received positive news from 
the boys at the front. 

Out of the 74 survivors of the Peninsulars 
at Camp Wyckofl:, some 20 were on the sick 
list, several seriously, and the total in the two 
Michigan regiments aggregated 367 in c^uar- 
ters and hospital. Governor Pingree had sent 
his son, together with G. A. Loud and G. 
Harry Keating of Bay City, to welcome the 
returning veterans at Montauk, and a number 
of relatives came early to care for their sick 
loved ones. 

On the night of September ist the quar- 
antine on both regiments was raised and at 
sunrise next morning all the uniforms, tentage 
and equipment used in Cuba were burned, new 
clothing issued, and the homeward journey 
commenced. The survivors will never forget 
the rousing welcome accorded the sunburnt 
and emaciated campaigners as they passed up 



East River on a ierry, and at every station 
through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York 
and Ohio, the regiments were accorded an 
even heartier welcome than on their outward 
trip. At Detroit hundreds of friends awaited 
them, and on Sunday, Sept. 3rd, every person 
living in Bay County was out to welcome the 
Peninsulars and the 33rd Infantry Band home. 
The ranks were thinned, many of the boys 
could hardly be recognized after only four 
months absence, so deep graven were the evi- 
dences of tropical war ser\-ice under adverse 
conditions, and many a cheer was hushed at 
sight of the wan faces and emaciated forms. 
But the great surging throng of fellow-citi- 
zens, the brief but impressive services at the 
old armory, the tears and joy of loved ones, 
did not fail to cheer the weary travelers. Rest 
and care of home and mother soon wiped out 
in most cases the last vestiges of foreign serv- 
ice. A few have suffered and lingered with the 
treacherous fevers to this day, and each year 
adds new graves for the loving remembrancc- 
of sur\-iving comrades. 

The Michigan regiments were accorded 
two months furlough at their home stations 
and on December 12, 1898, the Peninsulars and 
the 33rd Infantry band were mustered out and 
honorably discharged from the United States 
volunteer service. But scores of Bay County 
soldiers were then still in the service, in the 
United States navy and regular army, and in 
other volunteer regiments then carrying the 
"Stars and Stripes" victoriously through the 
Philippines. A number of the Cuban veterans 
at once reenlisted in the 30th United States Vol- 
unteer Infantry for service in the far East. 

The honor roll of those who fell at the post 
of duty includes : W. H. Dollard, J. T. Sills, 
Frank E. Sharp, Guy A. Poole, Arthur Fis- 
sette, who died in Cuba ; Bert F. Becker, W' ill 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



357 



Thompson, Fred Von Walthausen, Fred Mey- 
ers, William Pringle, J. W. JMcKee, F. Parent, 
and D. H. MacMillan, who died in the United 
States; and W. J. McLean, Ralph Thompson, 
F. Warner, Charles Calkins, Frank L. Har- 
vvood, and R. Archambeau, who died in the 
Philippines. 

The ladies of Bay City presented the 
Peninsular veterans with a new silk flag on 
their arrival home, and the Veteran Corps took 
excellent care of the sick and their families. 
But the new armory, which they had fondly 
hoped would soon be realized, is still a fond 
dream of future bliss. In 1899 the company 
was on the verge of disbanding for want of 
suitable drill quarters but when the present of- 
ficers took hold, in 1901, Arion Hall was se- 
cured for barracks purposes, and, while some- 
what small, it is a large improvement over the 
tumble-down shack, which witnessed the depar- 
ture for Cuba and the home coming of Bay 
City's volunteer contingent. A fund has since 
been created for auditorium and armory pur- 
poses, public conveniences that should long since 
have been supplied by our fellow-citizens. 
However, better late than never. 

In August, 1900, the Peninsulars attended 
the last encampment at Island Lake; Camp 
Bliss (1901) and Camp Hawley (1902), 
named in honor of Bay City's brigade com- 
mander, were held at Manistee. October i to 
12, 1903, the Peninsulars took part in the 
regular army maneuvers at Camp Young, West 
Point, Kentucky. Camp Boynton (1904) was 
held at Ludington, where from August 8 to 
17, inclusive, will he held the field encampment 
of 1905. At each of these last five camps Com- 
pany B has had the honor of being the only 
complete company on duty, not an cffiicer or 
member being missing during all these 
years. 



On Michigan Day, October 12, 1904, the 
Peninsulars, Company B, Third Infantry, M. 
N. G., were the guard of honor for Governor 
Bliss at St. Louis, the only military represent- 
atives from Michigan at the World's Fair, 
winning daily encomiums for a week for their 
fine work on parade, and during special drills 
on the Plaza St. Louis and the Grand Esplan- 
ade. Bay City was represented by two officers 
and 53 enlisted men, carrying the tattered bat- 
tle-flag of the 33rd Michigan Infantry, U. S. 
Volunteers, and this distinctive honor is a fit- 
ting tribute to the loyal service of our volun- 
teers in times of peace. 

The officers of Company B, Third Infantry, 
for 1905, are as follows : Captain, A. H. Gans- 
ser; ist lieutenant, L. G. Beckwith; 2nd lieu- 
tenant, W. A. Collins; ist sergeant, C. L. 
Walk ; ciuartermaster sergeant, J. S. Sills ; ser- 
geants, — R. A. Garu, F. G. Leser, H. Reinecke, 
L. D. Pierson and G. R. Dreyer; corporals, — 
J. L. McCormick, C. E. Cuthbert, W. S. 
Kurzrock, D. D. Canell, G. H. Evarts, Ed. 
Johnson, W. E. Wilson, J. H. Annis, G. E. 
Vliet ; musicians, — A. L. Gage, Paul Mona- 
ghan, G. R. Birchard, J. J. Carroll, A. G. 
Heeke, Emil Schulz, George Weggel, and Otto 
Mueller; cooks, — E. B. Hammond, J. J. Cole- 
man, Ad. Lefever and H. F. Colley; color 
guard, — F. J. Fenton, H. H. Hutton, L. Hut- 
ton, A. W. Black, N. A. Eddy, Carl Jacobsen, 
R. B. White, C. G. Leatz, E. F. Rehmus, W. 
T. Sampson and T. J. White ; artificer, — C. F. 
Kelley. The privates are 56 in number. 

The roster in 1905 shows a full complement 
of officers and men, and 20 recruits on the wait- 
ing list, so that the Peninsulars are certain to 
maintain their lead in the Michigan National 
Guard for some time to come. 

Bay City is at present national headquar- 
ters of the National League of Veterans and 



358 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Sons, including in its ranks veterans of all our 
wars, sons of veterans, and veterans of more 
than three years service in the National Guard. 
The national officers are: Commander, L. G. 
Willcox; adjutant general, \\'. N. Sweeney; 
inspector general, A. H. Gansser; attorney 
general. J. E. Brockway; executive staff, — 



L. ]\IcHugh, and A. H. McMillan. Sheridan 
Camp, No. 5, of Bay City is among the most 
thriving local organizations in this rapidly 
growing patriotic order. The local officers of 
this organization, as well as of the G. A. R. 
and Spanish War Veterans, are given in Chap- 
ter XIV. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Minor Mention — Odds and Ends. 



Trust no future, howe'er pleasant ! 

Let the dead Past bury its dead ! 
Act — act, in the living Present ! 

Heart within, and God o'erhead. 

—Longfctloiv. 



Alaskan methods of communication were 
in vogue in Central Michigan before the rail- 
roads took the place of "blazed" trail and cor- 
duroy roads. Mail was carried in summer by 
boats. In winter dogs were hitched to a train- 
ole, led by a frontiersman on snowshoes and 
followed by a guard similarly equipped. Their 
camps en route were pitched wherever night 
overtook them, but usually in the midst of the 
primitive forest. Stages ran for 20 years be- 
tween here and Alpena. 

From 1850 to 1862, James M. Miller con- 
ducted the "pony post" between here and Sag- 
inaw, using the ice on the river in winter, but 
during rainy reasons he had to leave his pony 
north of the Cheboyganing Creek, and make 
the rest of the route on foot through the quag- 
mires of the marsh. Since then the Pere Mar- 
quette Railroad track has become a dyke for 
the lands back of it, and by huge dykes and 
drainage canals most of this rich tottom land 
on the east side of the river has been redeemed, 
the McGraw farm and the Fifield-Mundy farm 
being among the very richest in Michigan. 
The celery raised on the McGraw farm is far 
famed, bringing fancy prices down East, the 



crop being annually contracted for in advancd 
Larsre orchards of fruit trees have of late vears 
been planted on these tracts. 

M. Ueberhorst, a graduate of Germany's 
agricultural college, built the first prairie farm 
dyke, the ditch being five miles long, 30 feet 
wide at the top and six feet deep. The 
embankment above was 30 feet wide at the 
bottom, and five feet high. The floods of many 
springs have failed to undermine or break this 
hard clay bank, overgrown with grass and 
bushes. 

The Michigan Chemical Company, of Bay 
City, is dyking a 10,000 acre farm on the Shia- 
wassee, a branch of the Saginaw, for raising 
sugar beets or their sugar houses at Owosso 
and Lansing. The marsh on the west bank 
(if the ri\-er has not yet been dyked, but the 
lands are all taken up, and the river will be still 
further restricted, and more farm lands added 
that once were thought by everyone to be worse 
than useless. That done, there will not be a 
spot in all Bay County that will not be habitable 
and cultivated. 

Few people in these parts have a correct 
idea of the gradual rise of the countrv to the 



360 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



north of Bay Cit)'. The latest State surveys 
show Standish to he 625 feet above tide : Ster- 
I'mg, 743, and Summit, 829. Omer, nearer 
the bay shore, is 610 feet above tide; Emery 
Junction, 672; and Alpena, 601. 

The water level on bay and river has been 
steadily receding in recent years, but experts 
predict that a return tide will soon bring the 
water back to its former level. A more lasting 
change has been brought about in the valley 
by the clearing of the forests, for the weather 
for the last half century has been gradually 
growing milder. The summers are not as hot 
as formerly, forest fires are unheard of, and 
cool breezes sweep unrestrained over the val- 
ley, making Bay City a veritable summer re- 
sort during the heated term. The winters are 
also less severe, and the snow-fall year in and 
year out is nothing compared to the mountains 
of "snowy white" the early settlers encoun- 
tered. March, 1905, has gone on record as 
the warmest March ever known here. Con- 
trary to the dictum of old residents, "it came in 
like a lamb, and went out like a flock of sheep." 
Drainage, both by the county and by indi- 
viduals, is greatly reducing the danger of 
spring freshets and increasing the value of 
farm property. 

The Saginaw went on a rampage in ]\Iarch, 
1904. The heavy rains of the preceding fall 
had filled all the water-ways of the valley to 
overflowing when the frost king sealed them 
up. With the advent of spring all these waters 
poured into the Saginaw, drowning several 
people, considerable cattle and other live stock 
and fowls, and causing heavy property loss, as 
well as ruining crops in the lowlands. The 
valley south of Bay City was one huge lake 
about nine miles wide, with only here and there 
the dykes of the railroads visible above the 
water level. The bridges were saved by the free 
use of dynamite to keep the ice floes moving 



out. The flood's alluvial deposits insure rich 
harvests to the prairie farms in 1905. 

Some of the commercial fisherman near the 
Interurban bridge are in 1905 literally fish- 
ing on "Dorr's Farm." In 1835 Albert H. 
Dorr bought 200 acres of lowlands there for 
pasture purposes. According to the old pion- 
eers, the river level raised gradually from 
1830 to 1838, submerging Dorr's land, and 
considerably altering the course of the river 
bed. Where in the summer of 1835 stood blue- 
joint grass, four feet high, interwoven with pea 
blossoms, morning glories and other wild flow- 
ers, presenting an enchanting picture, there 
was nothing but murky water the following 
spring. The 150 cattle and 50 horses, kept 
by Judge Albert Miller for Mr. Dorr, with this 
prairie hay supply gone had to winter under 
the care of Indians on cane rushes near Ouani- 
cassee ; only a few of the horses succumbed. 

Most of the fisherman in the ice of Saginaw 
Bay left the dangerous fishing grounds with 
the first intimation of a break up, but as usual 
some of the more venturesome remained to the 
last. A party of five men and one woman, 
fishing 30 miles from Bay City, found fishing 
so good they staid after all the other shanties 
had left the site of "Iceburg." A south wind 
during the night compelled them to leave their 
fish and personal belongings behind, and trudge 
over the treacherous ice for 24 hours, often 
breaking through, before being rescued near 
Oa-at-ka Beach. The members of the party 
were starving and utterly worn out when 
rescued. 

Bay City has reason to be proud of her 
public bridges. From north to south, we have 
the Belinda bridge, uniting Banks and Dolsen- 
ville; Third street bridge, uniting the business 
centers on both sides of the river; Lafayette 
avenue bridge, uniting Bay City S. S., with 
Salzburg; and Cass avenue bridge uniting the 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



361 



•extreme South End suburbs. Three railroad 
bridges also cross the river here. 

The aggregate lumber production of Michi- 
gan in 1904 was: Pine, 426,912,734 feet; 
hemlock, 623.696,682 feet; hardwood, 618,- 
938,333 feet: the total output being 1,669,547,- 
749 feet. The output in 1903 was 1,945,373,- 
031 feet and in 1902 it was 1,846,104,970 feet. 
The S. G. M. Gates mill, at the foot of Sixth 
street. Bay City, built in 1863, holds the State 
record for continuous operation under the same 
owner. In 1905 it has a full supply of logs for 
another season's run. 

During the height of the lumber industry 
in the valley, the fire demon was much feared 
in Bay City. Time and again whole squares 
were wiped out in a few hours, despite all that 
the department and citizens could do. The fire 
which wiped out the heart of the South End in 
1894 was the worst on record, all the buildings, 
sidewalks and trees in 32 squares being licked 
up. Forest fires were also much dreaded by 
the isolated settlers. In 1871 a forest fire 
swept over a large area to the southeast, Fred 
Beyer and his neighbors in Merritt township 
losing barns, fences, crops and timber valued 
at thousands of dollars, while the timber on 
the government lands wiped out would have 
aggregated a value, even in that period, of sev- 
eral hundred thousand dollars. With the clear- 
ing of the woods, this danger gradually grew 
less, until in 1904 not a single serious fire was 
reported. 

An effort is being made to reduce the fire 
department companies by one man each, thus 
saving $1,500 annually. Since Bay City's low 
fire insurance rate is largely due to the efficency 
of this department, i)roven on many occasions, 
this economy would proba!)ly prove quite costly 
in the end. 

One of Bay City's really famous citizens is 
John G. Clarkson, known all over the world 



as the peer of baseball twirlers, 1880-95, "^^'^lo 
played here in 1883-85, then for years was with 
Chicago, until sold for Si 0,000 to the world's 
champion team at Boston. He is still active 
in promoting the national game locally. 

The Federal census of 1900 tells us that 
Bay County with 63.448 people has 333 fac- 
tories, with 10,086 employees. Of these, Bay 
City, East Side, has 201 factories and 4,975 
employees and the West Side, 69 factories with 
4,179 employees. Pinconning with 729 peo- 
ple has seven factories, with 84 employees. Es- 
sexville, with 1,639 people has nine factories, 
and 502 employees. 

Bay City had a Board of Commerce as far 
back as 1865, but periodically these worthy 
institutions come and go, lost usually for the 
lack of support by the business men and com- 
munity at large. In 1905 the Board of Trade 
is a real. li\'e affair, with Walter D. Young, 
president, and L. ]\I. Persons, secretary. A 
strong executive committee, composed of our 
most public-tepii]ited and enterprising young 
business men augurs well for effective work 
for the welfare of Greater Bay City. A wealth 
of opportunities cluster about out river high- 
way of trade and commerce. It only remains 
for our progressi\e citizens to attract the out- 
side world's attention to our many advantages. 
There is a wide field for action for our Board 
of Trade. 

The Bay City Club has for 35 years been 
one of the city's metropolitan institutions. In 
the burning of Wood's Opera House four years 
ago, the club lost all its property. In 1904 this 
enterprising organization built the beautiful, 
new, four-story club house on the Park plaza, 
Center avenue, and it is to-day the best 
equipped club house in Michigan. Every con- 
venience is afforded for the recreation and en* 
joyment of its members and visiting business 
men. Baths, bowling alleys, gymnasium and 



2,62 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



physical culture rooms provide healthful recre- 
ation. The cafe and dining rooms, presided 
over by Stewart Upton, of Chicago, look well 
to the care of the inner man, while the reading 
room, billiard and card parlors, lecture room 
and ball room, all exquisitely furnished, airy 
and modern in every particular, make the 
club house the most popular rendezous of our 
business men and their families. Brilliant 
social functions weekly are the order of the 
season. 

While the voters in Bay County were regis- 
tering their will on April 3, 1905, a terrific 
shock rocked the roundabout country about 4 
p. m. Three employees of the Thomas nitro- 
glycerine works near Kawkawlin had been 
blown to atoms in the dynamite storehouse. A 
hole 35 feet deep and 30 feet in diameter alone 
marked the spot where the little brick structure 
had been for years. The men had no business 
there, and the cause of the explosion will always 
be a mystery. A little basket full of shredded 
human flesh and skin, picked from roundabout 
trees and bushes, was all that was found of the 
three unfortunates, one of whom was an In- 
dian. Funeral services were held two days 
later, and the mortal remains were interred in 
a single grave. Windows in houses 10 miles 
away were broken, while some near the dyna- 
mite factory escaped injury. 

Early on Sunday morning, April g, 1905, 
the inmates of the County Poor Farm found 
flames issuing from the roof near the chimney, 
and in less than two hours all the adjoining 
buildings were an ash heap. The inmates, 
many of them aged individuals, were with dif- 
ficulty removed, and sheltered for the time be- 
ing in the Bethel Mission, Third and Water 
streets. Plans for a new county farm building 
to cost $25,000 will be approved May nth. 

The Masonic Temple will be opened May 
16, 1905, by the Scottish Rite bodies, assisted 



on ]\Iay i8th by the Detroit Consistory and 
Moslem Temple, Mystic Shriners, who will 
confer 14th to 32nd degrees on a large class. 

The Hecla cement plant near the mouth of 
the river will untangle its legal difficulties in 
June, 1905, when by the order of the United. 
States Circuit Court the property will be sold 
at public auction, but no bid will be considered 
for less than $930,000, with $50 cash deposit 
to bind the bid. 

Greater Bay City has now become an estab- 
lished fact, with 45,000 people, and all the 
natural advantages for future growth and de- 
velopment. The first message of the first 
mayor, issued April 10, 1905, urges economy 
in municipal management of public affairs. 
The first act of the united cities' first Council 
provides for standard time, and for clearing up 
the mixed financial status of the West Side. 
The Board of Supervisors on April 25, 1905, 
elected George Hartingh, of Pinconning, chair- 
man for this term, contrary to expectations as 
the city has a majority on the board, but by 
his first act he evened up matters by giving 
Greater Bay City a majority representation on 
the committee on equalization, thus making it 
possible, for the first time in years, for the city 
to secure a fairer apportionment of the county's 
taxes, which heretofore have been largely as- 
signed to the East Side. The next act of the 
hoard provided for passing an enabling- act 
through the Legislature, which was done April 
27, 1905, allowing Bay County to bond for 
$20,000 for the erection of a new stone and 
brick home on the County Poor Farm, de- 
stro}-ed by fire April 9th. The first joint action 
of the business men of the united city resulted 
in securing the Faulkner Solvay Process Chem- 
ical Company, which will erect a monster plant 
on the West Side, north of the Kern mill : cap- 
ital $200,000. The new hotel project is also 
being boomed, ex-Mayor Frank T. Woodworth. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



363. 



Hon. Spencer O. Fisher, W. D. Young and 
others subscribing $10,000 each toward the 
$100,000 required for a hotel better suited to 
the needs of the larger cit}-, which has been 
served by the Eraser House for nearly 40 
years and by more recent but smaller hostelries. 
An auditorium to accommodate large public 
meetings. State and national conventions, is an- 
other immediate local necessity. 

Look about us where we will, in this month 
of April, 1905, we find much of encouragement 
and satisfaction in our living conditions. The 
booming days of the lumber industry are gone 
beyond recall, but to this place have come hun- 



dreds of smaller but more permanent indus- 
tries. Many cozy new homes, and a number 
of palatial residences on Center avenue, will 
in 1905 add to the wealth and beauty of the 
metropolis of Northern Michigan. All our 
industries are in motion, no one need be idle, 
and our future prospects are brighter than be- 
fore in many years. Providence has done 
much indeed for the "Garden Spot of Michi- 
gan." Let every one enjoying these blessings 
contribute a little effort in the years to come 
for progress, w'holesome growth, and the gen- 
eral advancement of individual and collective 
prosperity. 




HORACE TUPPER, M. D. 



Repmentdtive (Mmm 



GRACE TUPPER, M. D. The pages 
of a history of Bay County would 
lack completeness without the hon- 
ored name of the late Dr. Horace 
Tupper, that good man, kind and genial gen- 
tleman and skilled and experienced physician. 
The late Dr. Tupper, whose portrait is here- 
with shown, was born at Pine Plains, Colum- 
bia County, New York, October 2, 1830, and 
was a son of Dr. Archelaus and Leah (Strever) 
Tupper. 

His father was a very prominent physician 
in Columbia County, and the young man seems 
to have been divided in his affection for medi- 
cine and mechanics. After completing the pub- 
lic school course, he secured his father's permis- 
sion to enter a machine shop where he could 
be instructed in mechanical engineering, spend- 
ing his days among the whirring of wheels and 
the turning of great lathes, and his evenings 
in his father's study, just as much absorbed in 
works on physiology and anatomy. As a result 
of his work in the machine shop, he invented 
and patented several valuable devices, one of 
these being a fare-box for cars and another 
being a street railway switch. The latter he 
introduced in the street railway system at Buf- 
falo, New York, and it is yearly becoming more 
and more used on all street railway lines. 

Until he was 20 years old. Dr. Tupper read 
medicine under his able father, and then en- 



tered the office of Dr. Frank Hamilton, who at 
that time was professor of surgery in the Buf- 
falo Medical School. He thus enjoyed more 
than usual advantages, as he had full access 
during his term of study with Dr. Hamilton, to 
the Sisters' General Hospital. He then entered 
the Edward Street Female Hospital at Buffalo, 
where he combined study and practice for some 
two years and was graduated from the Buffalo 
Medical School in February, 1862. 

The young surgeon found a coveted open- 
ing in the Civil War, then in progress, and, first 
as assistant and later as full surgeon, with rank 
of major, he entered an Ohio regiment and was 
assigned to service in a battery of the Sixth 
Division of the Army of the Tennessee. Dr. 
Tupper remained with his battery until he 
reached Corinth, Mississippi, participating in 
the meanwhile in the battles of Pittsburg Land- 
ing. Farmington and Corinth, and in many 
minor engagements. His preceptor, Dr. Ham- 
ilton, had gone into the service in order to make 
a special study of gunshot wounds. Both sub- 
sequently left the army and Dr. Hamilton lo- 
cated in New York City, where he became a 
great surgical authority. 

In 1863, Dr. Tupper became interested 
with Samuel Bolton, a capitalist and lumber- 
man of Philadelphia, in the manufacture of 
salt in the Saginaw Valley, building and oper- 
ating a salt-block in connection with a sawmill 



368 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



which they had purchased. Without technical 
language, their plan was to use exhaust steam 
from the mill and also use the slabs and saw- 
dust to keep up the required amount of heat to 
crystalize the salt. The plan proved successful 
and was quickly adopted by others and is still 
used in the salt-blocks of the Saginaw Valley. 

By this time Bay City had grown into quite 
a village and Dr. Tupper was recalled to his 
profession, for years being the only accredited 
surgeon in all this locality, for 15 years travel- 
ing all over this territory to answer calls for 
liis surgical skill, and even continued to prac- 
tice until the close of his life. After the gradu- 
ation of his nephew, Dr. Virgil L. Tupper, 
from medical school, he had delegated his night 
work to the latter and had gradually retired 
from practice, but many of the older families 
could never feel safe in any other medical hands 
than those of the older doctor, who had so 
faithfully ministered to them. His death oc- 
curred on April 16, 1902. 

On December 24, 1862, the year of his 
graduation from the Buffalo Medical School, 
Dr. Tupper was married to Elizabeth Trinder, 
a refined and cultured English lady, who is a 
daughter of William Trinder, of Chadlington, 
Oxfordshire, England. After her father's 
death, her mother married again and died at 
Bridgeport, Connecticut. Dr. and Mrs. Tup- 
per had one son, Horace Tupper, Jr., who is an 
attorney at Bay City. 

The late Dr. Tupper was always identified 
with the Republican party and was something 
of a politician, although he never was willing 
to accept political honors. He was actively in- 
terested in the Grand Army of the Republic 
and served as commander of the H. P. Merrill 
Post at Bay City. In all medical progress in 
this section, he was a leader for years. With 
Dr. Thomas he organized the Bay County Med- 
ical Society and was one of the organizers of 



the Michigan State Medical Society. He was 
one of the valued members of the American 
]\Iedical x\ssociation and seldom missed one of 
its meetings and continually contributed to its 
literature. He had many pleasant social con- 
nections and the Tupper home has long been 
known as a center of literary refreshment and 
refined hospitality. 

In this beautiful home; in the homes of 
others to which his presence brought comfort 
and healing ; along the city streets ; in the con- 
ventions where men of science prove their mar- 
velous discoveries; at the meetings of civic 
bodies and boards of public charities ; and in a 
hundred other avenues of honor and usefulness, 
this great-hearted, kind, genial, able man will 
long be remembered. 




E. JENNISON, president of the 
Jennison Hardware Company, of 
Bay City, Michigan, is one of the 
city's early business men and rep- 
resentative citizens. He was born in 1829, at 
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is a son of Wil- 
liam Jennison, who removed to New York City 
when our subject was five years old. 

William Jennison engaged there in the iron 
business in the metropolis under the firm name 
of Mackey, Oakley & Jennison. His home was 
in Brooklyn, but his death occurred in the city 
of Philadelphia. 

C. E. Jennison came to Lower Saginaw 
(now Bay City) in 1850 and entered into gen- 
eral business in partnership with James Eraser. 
In 1864 he sold his other interests and entered 
into the hardware line, but is no longer active 
in its work, the business being under the man- 
agement of William F., G. B. and D. M. Jen- 
nison. Formerly, Mr. Jennison was interested 
in other industries of this section and was one 
of the first to engage in the salt business. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



369 



For many years after coming to this city, 
Mr. Jennison took a very prominent part in 
its development along all lines, and he served 
on civic bodies and assisted in the founding of 
the present school system. Politically he has 
always been in sympathy with the Republican 
party. In earlier years he was active in the 
IMasonic and other fraternal societies. 

Mr. Jennison was married to Florence Bir- 
ney, who is the surviving daughter of the late 
Hon. James G. Birney, of national fame. 




VMES FRASER, deceased, one of the 
original proprietors of Lower Sagi- 
naw, IMichigan, and one of the orig- 
inal promoters of Bay City, was born 
in Inverness, Scotland, February 5, 1S03. His 
father was a British soldier in early life and 
participated in the war against the French in 
1796. He lost his leg at the Island of St. Luce, 
and thereafter received a pension from the 
British government. His wife survived him 
some years, and spent the last year of her life 
with her son at Saginaw and her daughter at 
Lower Saginaw, dying in 1850. 

When James Eraser was quite young, he 
engaged in business for himself, early showing 
those qualities which enabled him in later years 
to overcome successive reverses and rise tri- 
umphant to a station among the foremost finan- 
ciers of his section of the State. He had no 
early educational advantages and frequently 
in the days of his youth waded barelegged 
through snow to carry a message to earn his 
ha' penny, and daily took a brick of turf under 
his arm to the village school as fuel for the fire. 
He achieved some success in his native country 
and upon coming to America in 1829 was pos- 
sessed of several thousand dollars. His first 
business venture, however, was not a success. 



In company with two or three Scotchmen, he 
attempted to build a sawmill in Rochester, Oak- 
land County, Michigan. He spent his first 
winter in this country making preparations. 
They paid exhorbitant prices for materials and 
supplies and in the spring found their funds 
about exhausted, necessitating the abandon- 
ment of their enterprise. Mr. Eraser's experi- 
ence proved costly though valuable in the les- 
sons it taught, for he had only $100 left of the 
money he brought to this country. With this 
sum he went to Detroit, established a small 
grocery and made money rapidly. In the fall 
of 1833, he moved to the vicinity of Saginaw 
and occupied a piece of land along the Tittaba- 
wassee River, which he had previously pur- 
chased. At this time there was only an Indian 
trail between Flint and Saginaw, and the trip 
had to be made on horseback or on foot. He 
took his family with him; his wife, being then 
but 17 years old and having an infant in her 
arms, was pulled along on a sort of sled, al- 
though it was not winter time and there was no 
snow on the ground. After seeing his family 
well-located, he returned to Detroit to purchase 
cattle for his farm. W'hile driving the cattle 
on foot, between Flint and Saginaw they be- 
came wild and left the trail. He ran after 
them until he was tired out and heated, when 
he took off his coat and carried it. Finding 
what he thought to be the trail, he hung his 
coat on a shrub, while he ran to head off the 
cattle from again going astray. But when he 
returned to get his coat, he could not find it, al- 
though he searched for it several hours. After 
he had become a very wealthy man he used to 
tell that that was his severest loss, as the pocket 
of that coat contained $500, all the money he 
had in the world. He cleared some land and 
planted an orchard, which became the most 
flourishing in this section of the State. In the 
division of his estate after his death, this farm 



370 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



went to his daughter, — Mrs. A. B. Paine, of 
Saginaw. He found locating and deahng in 
government lands more profitable than farm- 
ing, and devoted his energies to that end, re- 
moving with his family to Saginaw in 1836. 
In 1835 and 1836 land in good locations 
brought big prices, and his keen foresight 
and good judgment enabled him to multiply 
his fortune. In 1836, he was one of the pro- 
moters of the Saginaw Bay Company, which 
purchased the site of Bay City, but the panic 
of 1837 wrecked the company and most of the 
stockholders. 

His remarkable record in business from 
1835 to 1838 and the fact that he withstood 
the panic^ which carried nearly all down to 
ruin, marks him as a master of finance. He 
bought lands when they were cheap and held 
them until they greatly increased in value. 
After the failure of the Saginaw Bay Com- 
pany, in association with several others he pur- 
chased considerable scrip and became one of the 
proprietors of Lower Saginaw. In 1845, ^''^ 
built a water-mill on the Kawkawlin River and 
began the manufacture of lumber. During the 
next three years he was interested in building 
and operating two steam sawmills on the Sag- 
inaw River, and later a steam-mill on the Kaw- 
kawlin River. He succeeded Judge Riggs as 
Indian farmer, the only office he ever held for 
which he received pay. 

About 1857 he and his family removed to 
Lower Saginaw (now Bay City) and here in a 
commodious mansion was dispensed a most 
liberal hospitality. In this city his energies 
were devoted not alone to private enterprises. 
but to public improvements as well. The 
church edifice on Washington street, in which 
the Baptists worshiped, was almost wholly a 
gift from him. About the last of his business 
enterprises was the erection of the Fraser 
House at the corner of Center and Water 



streets, which he did not live to see completed. 
In 1864, feeling the necessity of rest and quiet 
after so many years of activity, he retired with 
his family to Brooklyn, New York, where 
they resided a few months, then removed to 
Westport, Connecticut, where he resided until 
his death on January 28, 1866. His last sick- 
ness came on as an ordinary cold and developed 
into typhoid pneumonia, from which he never 
recovered. His death was sadly mourned in 
Bay City, where the impress of his deeds and 
accomplishments stand as a monument to his 
memory. His remains were buried at W^est- 
port, Connecticut, but were afterward removed 
to Elm Lawn Cemetery, Bay City. 

In 1832, Mr. Fraser was united in marriage 
with Elizabeth Busby, a young English woman 
of more than ordinary attractions who came 
to this country with her parents in 1831. She 
was born in London, England, March 23, 1817, 
and was a daughter of James and Ann (Perry) 
Busby. James Busby was a native of Somer- 
setshire, and was reared on a farm. He came 
to this country with his family and first settled 
in Detroit, then removed to Saginaw in 1833, 
he and James Fraser taking up farms on oppo- 
site sides of the river. He died at Saginaw in 
1840. He married Ann Perry, also a native 
of England and a daughter of Joseph and 
Sarah (Brittain) Perry. To this union came 
the following offspring: Joseph, who died at 
De Land, Florida, January 29, 1905, aged 92- 
years ; James ; Elizabeth, wife of James Fraser ;• 
Thomas, of Ypsilanti, Michigan ; Lucy, de- 
ceased, who first married Ebenezer W. Perry, 
and, after the latter's death, married a Mr. 
Shaw; and Edward, who lives in New York 
City. Mrs. Fraser was a devout Christian and 
a member of St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal 
Church of Detroit. She died in 1848, aged 31 
years to a day. James Fraser and his wife 
became the parents of the following children : 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



^7-1 



Alexander D., born October 6, 1833, deceased 
in 1850; Annie, born July 30, 1836, wbo is the 
widow of William McEwan, a record of whose 
life appears elsewhere in this work ; Elizabeth, 
born August 31, 1838, who is the wife of Elias 
B. Dennison, of Mobile, Alabama ; Jennie, born 
October 11, 1842, and deceased in 1900, who 
was the wife of Alderman B. Paine, who died 
in 1904; John J., born December 4, 1844, de- 
ceased in 1866; and William Wallace, born 
March 14, 1848, deceased in 1862. 

On October 28, 1850, Mr. Eraser formed 
a second marriage, with Susan Moulton, of 
Westfiort, Connecticut, a woman of beautiful 
character and during his life she continued his 
faithful helpmeet. The life and character of 
Mr. Eraser were above reproach. He was a 
man of untiring energy and perseverance, and 
once having determined upon a policy he 
fought his way to the end, overcoming obsta- 
cle after obstacle. Eew are possessed of the 
hardihood and courage required by the kind 
of life he led. The volume of his business 
would be considered enormous even at the 
present day, when we have modern facilities 
such as railroads and telegraphs. He had a 
retentive memory and although for years his 
head was his ledger, he transacted his affairs 
with the utmost exactness as to details. In his 
intercourse with men he was most genial 
and pleasant, and enjoyed the friendship of 
everyone. 




ON. NATHAN B. BRADLEY, the 
first mayor of Bay City, Michigan, 
ex-Member of Congress, founder and 
head of the firm of N. B. Bradley 
& Sons, and for a great many years one 
of the most active business men of Bay 
County, was born in Lee, Berkshire Coun- 
ty, Massachusetts, on May 28, 1831. The Sag- 
21 



inaw Valley has had few lumber men who have' 
operated so long and successively as has Mr. 
Bradley. 

The father of the subject of this sketch was- 
a native of Massachusetts, where he was en- 
gaged in the tanning business until 1835. In 
that year he removed to Ohio, where the sub- 
ject of this sketch attended the common schools. 
After finishing his schooling, Nathan B. Brad- 
ley began at the age of 16 years to learn the 
trade of a custom clothier. Having mastered 
this trade, he journeyed to Wisconsin in the' 
fall of 1849 ''"d there secured employment in 
a sawmill. He returned to Ohio in 1850 and 
in partnership with a brother engaged in the 
sawmill business until 1852. In that year Mr. 
Bradley came to Michigan. After living three 
years near Lexington, in Sanilac County, he 
removed in 1855 to St. Charles, in the Sagi- 
naw Valley, where he took a position as super- 
intendent of a lumbering plant. In 1858 he 
removed to Lower Saginaw (now Bay City), 
and in the following year assumed the manage- 
ment of what was then called the "Erost & 
Bradley Mill." After managing this mill in 
1859, he rented and operated it in i860, and in 
1861, with two of his brothers, purchased it 
and operated it under the name of N. B. Brad- 
ley & Company. The manufacture of salt was 
added to the lumber business in 1864 when this 
company built the first modern steam salt-block 
in the Saginaw Valley. It was located near the 
foot of 1 6th street, in Bay City. This company 
afterw^ard built two other blocks in connection 
with the lumber business, and was successfully 
engaged in the manufacture of lumber and 
salt until 1891. The firm of N. B. Bradley & 
Company was composed of Nathan B. and his 
two brothers, Charles and Erederick E., of 
Chicago. About the year 1878, Frederick E. 
withdrew- and Nathan B: and Charles continued 
under the original company name and style 



Z72 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



until about the year 1880 or 1881 when, Charles 
having previously died, Nathan B. took his two 
sons into the business as partners, under the 
name of N. B. Bradley & Sons, which firm is 
still in business in Bay City. Mr. Bradley was 
-one of the active organizers of the Bay County 
Salt Association, and was for 3'ears a director 
-therein and for some years treasurer thereof. 
;He also took a prominent part in the early de- 
velopment of the beet sugar industry, which 
has since grown to large proportions. 

In January, 1867, Mr. Bradley engaged in 
the banking business in association with B. E. 
Warren. On the reorganization of the First 
National Bank of Bay City after its failure, he 
became one of the stockholders and served as 
vice-president of the institution for several 
years. 

Mr. Bradley's political career has been ex- 
tended and honorable, and he has rendered val- 
uable service to his city, county and State. In 
1865, when Bay City was incorporated, he was 
-elected its first mayor. In the fall of 1866 he 
-was elected to the State Senate, and in 1872 
-was elected to the 43rd Congress, in which he 
was a member of the committee on public lands 
and rendered valuable service thereon. While 
in Congress, he secured appropriations for 
dredging the channel of the Saginaw River 
and for improving other harbors in his district. 
This work was of prime importance. Mr. 
Bradley was also a member of the 44th Con- 
gress, and served on the committee on claims, 
-on which he maintained a creditable record. 
During these two sessions of Congress, he rep- 
resented what was then the 8th Congres- 
sional District of Michigan, since which time 
the district has been divided and Bay City is 
now in the loth Congressional District. 

The subject of this sketch joined the Ma- 
sons in 1853. He is a demitted member of 
Bay City Commandery, Knights Templar, and 



was a charter member of Bay City and Joppa 
lodges, F. & A. M., and of Blanchard Chap- 
ter, R. A. M. 




HE OLD SECOND NATIONAL 

BANK of Bay City has long been 
considered one of the leading finan- 
cial institutions of the Saginaw Val- 
ley. It has age, experience and capital to back 
it. It was organized May 5, 1874, with a capi- 
tal of $100,000, with 30 original shareholders, 
of whom only two are now living in Bay City. 
Of the other 28 original members, 14 have re- 
moved to other points and the hand of Death 
has laid the others low. The great institution 
they founded, however, continues to grow 
along the same lines of conservatism and safety 
that its founders laid out. 

The first board of directors of the Second 
National Bank, by which title the bank was 
known during the life of its first charter, in- 
cluded these prominent citizens: W. H. Sage; 
John McGraw; William Westover; A. J. 
Cooke ; Wheeler L. Plum ; Judge Albert Miller ; 
W. H. Tonsey and George E. Smith, all of Bay 
City; and F. F. Hyatt, William L. Smith and 
Alexander McFarlen, of Flint, Michigan. The 
first officers were : William Westover, presi- 
dent ; John McGraw, vice-president ; and 
Wheeler L. Plum, cashier. The first banking 
office was situated on the corner of Fourth and 
Water streets. Bay City. In the fall of 1876, 
the office was moved to No. 723 North Water 
street, at the foot of Center avenue. The first 
commercial deposit was made by A. Hyman, a 
clothing merchant of Bay City. 

The first change came about upon the death 
of Wheeler L. Plum, on January 10, 1878, 
when Martin INI. Andrews was elected to suc- 
ceed as cashier. On the first of the following 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



373 



May, 1878, the State Bank, an old-established 
institution, consolidated with, or was absorbed 
by, the Second National Bank, with the follow- 
ing official staff : \\' illiam Westover, president ; 
Alonzo Chesbrough, vice-president ; Orrin 
Bump, Cashier; and M. M. Andrews, assistant 
•cashier. 

The banking office was now removed to 
the Westover Opera House Block, on the cor- 
ner of ^Vashington and Center avenues. This 
building was destroyed by fire on January 17, 
1886, and was replaced by the present stately 
and commodious structure. At the time of 
uniting with the State Bank, the capital was 
increased to $200,000, and at a later date, to 
$250,000. On May 5, 1894, the first charter 
expired and the bank was reorganized under 
its present title, — The Old Second National 
Bank. 

During the first 20 years of its charter ex- 
istence, the bank enjoyed a large share of the 
business patronage of the community at a 
time when the lumbering interests of this 
part of the State were in the most 
flourishing condition. Shareholders were paid 
regular dividends of five per cent., semi- 
annually, and at the close of the 20 years 
they were paid, in addition to the par value 
of stock, 50 cents on the dollar in accrued 
profits. The Old Second National Bank began 
business with a capital of $400,000, but during 
the panic of 1897-99 it ^'^'^s conservatively re- 
duced to its present amount, — $200,000. 

The new bank officials, after the above re- 
organization, were: Orrin Bump, president; 
D. C. Smalley, vice-president; Martin M. An- 
'drews, cashier; and Charles M. Bump, assist- ! 
ant cashier. In July, 1899, D. C. Smalley died 
and was succeeded by Capt. James E. David- 
son as vice-president. On May 31. 1903, Pres- 
ident Orrin Bump retired on account of fail- 
ing health, and Capt. James E. Davidson be- 



came president and Frank P. Chesbrough. vice- 
president. Mr. Bump, who had so long been 
executive head of the bank and its active man- 
ager, removed to California, and M. M. An- 
Andrews became the manager. At the annual 
meeting on January 10, 1905, Capt. James E. 
Davidson was elected president; Frank T. 
Woodworth, vice-president; and John L. Stod- 
dard and George B. Jennison, directors. In 
addition to the two directors just named, the 
board is made up as follows : Edgar B. Foss, 
Capt. James E. Davidson, Frank P. Ches- 
brough, Frank T. Woodworth and Martin M. 
Andrews. 

Since its organization this bank has shown 
a steady growth. At the close of business on 
December 31, 1877, the daily statement showed 
amount of bills discounted to be $180,888 and 
deposits $141,566. In November, 1904, the 
bank statement showed : Bills discounted, 
$897,613.00, and deposits, $196,725.00. Dur- 
ing the first 10 years of the present 
corporate existence, — from May 5, 1894, 
to May 5, 1904, — the shareholders were paid 
$113,000 in dividends. In addition to that, 
there were credited to surplus fund $75,000, 
with still a balance of over $46,000 to credit of 
undivided profits. Thus it will be seen that 
the bank has well sustained its reputation of 
being one of the leading financial institutions 
of this section of the State. 




lLLl.\:\t D. FITZHUGH. The late 
William D. Fitzhugh was identi- 
fied so closely \\ith the early inter- 
ests of the Saginaw \'alley, to 
which he came with his bride in 1849, that a 
history of the notable men of Bay County, men 
whose enterprise, energy, judgment and capital 
contributed to its development, must include 



374 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



his name among the leading characters. Mr. 
Fitzhugh came of a family of substance and 
influential connections. He was born in Liv- 
inston County, New York, and was a son of 
Dr. Daniel Hughes Fitzhugh and Anne Frisby 
Dana, his wife. 

William D. Fitzhugh was descended on his 
father's side from William Fitzhugh, of Bed- 
ford, England, who was born in 1570. The 
latter's son, Henry Fitzhugh, also of Bedford, 
was born in 161 5. Col. William Fitzhugh, son 
of Henry and great-great-great-grandfather of 
the subject of this writing, was born in Bed- 
ford, England, in 1651, and was the first of the 
family to locate in this country, settling in 
Westmoreland County, Virginia. He was mar- 
ried to Sarah Tucker on May i, 1674, and died 
in Virginia, in 1701. His son, George Fitz- 
hugh, of Stafford County, Virginia, married 
Mary Mason. Col. William Fitzhugh, of Staf- 
ford County, Virginia, the son of George and 
great-grandfather of our subject, was born 
January 11, 1721, and died February 11, 1798. 
He married Mrs. Anne Rousby, nee Frisby, 
of Cecil County, Maryland, January 7, 1752. 
She was born September 15, 1727, and died 
March 26, 1793. 

Col. William Fitzhugh, the grandfather of 
our subject and son of the Col. William Fitz- 
hugh just named, was born in Calvert County, 
Maryland, October 6, 1761, and died Decem- 
ber 29, 1839. His wife, Ann Hughes, to whom 
he was married October 18, 1789, was born 
April I, 1 77 1, and died March 28, 1828. Col. 
William Fitzhugh, with his friends and neigh- 
bors, Nathaniel Rochester and Charles Carroll, 
visited Western New York in 181 5, after tak- 
ing part in the War of 1812; they purchased 
lands in Livingston County, including the site 
of the present city of Rochester, which was 
named in honor of one of the party. Colonel 



Fitzhugh settled his family in Livingston 
County in the following year. 

Dr. Daniel Hughes Fitzhugh, the father 
of our subject and son of Col. William Fitz- 
hugh, of Livingston County, New York, was. 
was born April 20, 1 794, in Washington Coun- 
ty, Maryland, near Hagerstown. He studied 
medicine and secured his degree but never fol- 
lowed the profession, having become interested 
in land values at an early date and continuing 
to be thus interested until his death, which 
occurred April 23, 1881, at the age of 87 years. 

On April 11, 1820, Dr. Daniel Hughes 
Fitzhugh was married to Anne Frisby Dana,, 
who was born at Geneva, New York, Decem- 
ber 22, 1803, and who died February 21, 1850. 
To Dr. Fitzhugh and wife were born 10 chil- 
dren, four of whom still survive. Mrs. Fitz- 
hugh was a daughter of Capt. William Pultney 
Dana, who was born in Shrewsbury, England, 
July 13, 1776, and who was married in April, 
1802, to Anne Frisby Fitzhugh ; the last named 
was born in Calvert County, Maryland, in 1782, 
and died in Geneva, New York, in January, 
1804. Captain Dana died in Shrewsbury, Eng- 
land, June 29, 1 86 1. He was a son of Rev. 
Edmund Dana, who was born at Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, November 18, 1739, graduated 
from Harvard in 1759, and was married about 
1765 to Helen Kinnaird. Rev. Edmund 
Dana lived during great portion of his life in 
England, where he died May 7, 1823. He 
was a son of Richard Dana, who was born at 
Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1699, gradu- 
ated from Harvard in 1718 and died in 1772. 
The wife of Richard Dana was Lydia Trow- 
bridge, of Boston, Massachusetts. His father 
was named Daniel Dana. 

Li the period just preceding the admission 
of Michigan to statehood, a great exodus from 
the East took place to a locality which was- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



O/ D 



justly represented to be one of the finest farm- 
ing districts of the Union, in aildition to being 
rich in mineral wealth and transportation facil- 
ities. Among those who came to see this land 
of promise for themselves, were a little party 
of capitalists from Livingston County, New 
York, who made the trip in 1834. Satisfied as 
to the future of this country, then but a dense 
woodland wilderness, they invested in large 
tracts of land, Dr. Fitzhugh and Judge Charles 
H. Carroll buying many acres in the rich Sag- 
inaw Valley. After the admission of Michigan 
to the Union, in 1837, and the establishment 
of a stable government, Dr. Fitzliugh pur- 
chased more land, becoming possessed of all 
that tract along the river which is now the site 
of West Bay City, and later he became one of 
the proprietary owners of Lower Saginaw 
(now Bay City). 

The late William D. Fitzhugh grew to 
manhood surrounded with every influence to 
develop his mental faculties and physical 
strength. He remained in Livingston County 
until his marriage in December, 1848, to Anne 
Carroll. This lady is a daughter of the late 
Hon. Charles H. and Alida (Van Rensselaer) 
Carroll. Mrs. Fitzhugh was born at Utica, 
New York, May i, 1828. Judge Carroll came 
from a distinguished Maryland family, and 
was born at Bellevue and was educated at 
Georgetown. After his admission to the bar 
in 1820, he settled in Livingston County, New 
York, and there became prominent in law and 
politics. He was the first judge of Livingston 
County and served both as Representative and 
as Senator from that county in the State Leg- 
islature. He accompanied Dr. Fitzhugh in 
his prospecting tri]) to the Saginaw Valley and 
invested largely in land here. He had partici- 
pated in the War of 181 2. For some 3'ears 
prior to his death, in 1865, he had given his 



whole attention to caring for his real estate in- 
vestments. 

William D. Fitzhugh and his bride came to 
Michigan in 1849 '^"^l were among the earliest 
settlers to found homes in this locality. Mr. 
Fitzhugh was led to select this section in order 
to look after his father's and his father-in- 
law's landed interests, but he later became per- 
sonally identified with the locality and the peo- 
ple and to such an extent that Bay City has 
always numbered him with her own representa- 
tive men. In point of fact, Mr. Fitzhugh lived 
in Bay County but four years, but continued 
his identification with her interests as long as 
he lived and testified, during his numerous 
visits, to his devotion to her welfare and to his 
pleasure in commingling with her people. 

Shortly after coming here, Mr. Fitzhugh, in 
company with a Mr. Alberta, made a complete 
survey of all that portion of Michigan, includ- 
ing Tuscola and the other counties adjacent 
to Bay. He was quick to note public impt-ove- 
ments needed and the great enterprise of drain- 
ing Bay County was accomplished by following 
his example of extensive ditching. While 'Mr. 
Fitzhugh resided at Bay City, the great cholera 
epidemic, swept the country and it is still re- 
called how he accompanied and assisted his 
friend, the noble Dr. August Nabert, in caring 
for the sick and in burying the dead. Mr. Fitz- 
hugh survived his humanitarian labors, but his 
friend was a victim. During one season, in 
order to ensure the carrying of the mail from 
Saginaw to Bay City, Mr. Fitzhugh attended 
to this public duty himself. He was super\-i- 
sor of his township and many of the early im- 
provements were inaugurated by and through 
his personal efforts. 

Mr. and Mrs. Fitzhugh's first residence in 
Bay City was located on the corner of Third 
and Water streets, the seventh dwelling erected 



3/6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



within the corporation limits. It was built by 
his brother, Daniel Fitzhugh, Jr., and was 
destroyed by fire in 1850. In the following 
year he built a new home on the corner of loth 
street and Washington avenue, the present site 
of the City Hall, a spot then surrounded by a 
dense forest. After Mr. Fitzhugh decided to 
return to his native surroundings, his brother 
purchased this house and subsequently sold it 
to the city. 

In those early days, Mr. and Mrs. Fitzhugh 
were not only the center of social life here, 
but were also leading factors in the organiza- 
tion of religious affairs and educational oppor- 
tunities. They were the founders of Trinity 
Protestant Episcopal Church and Mrs. Fitz- 
hugh was one of five communicants who at- 
tended the first service held in Saginaw, and 
still holds her membership with Trinity Church 
here. For some years she has resided in Bay 
City with her daughter, Mrs. Richard F. Con- 
over, Mr. Fitzhugh having died in Livingston 
County, New York, in 1889. Of their eight 
children, six grew to maturity and three still 
survive, viz : Anne Dana, who is the wife of 
Judge Hamilton ]\Iercer Wright, of Bay City; 
Cornelia, who is the wife of Richard Field Con- 
over, a prominent business man of Bay City ; 
and Edward F., who is a resident of Idaho. 

Mrs. Fitzhugh's recollections of a half- cen- 
tury ago are clear and her relation of them 
gives a vi\"id picture of times and conditions 
which it would take pages of this history to 
record. The time is not so long, measuring by 
years, but in the light of achievements, how 
remote it seems ! ^\dlen she and her husband 
came to this section, it was very close to the be- 
ginning of the history of Bay City. She has 
in her possession a number of legal papers with 
the signatures of Presidents Jackson and Van 
Buren, relative to the lands purchased by her 
father and the Fitzhughs, 



In 1878, Mr. and ]\Irs. Fitzhugh deeded to 
the city a valuable tract of land to be used for 
a public park. This land was formerly owned 
by Judge Carroll, her father, and was pre- 
sented to her by him. In turn she gave it tO' 
Bay City, under the name of Carroll Park, and 
this public improvement will continue for all 
time to recall not only her honored father, but 
a lady whose beautiful life and character have 
endeared her greatly to those in the midst of 
whom she has chosen to spend the e^•ening 
of life. 




\RTIX :Sl. ANDREWS, cashier 
and manager of the Old Second 
National Bank of Bay City, I\Iich- 
igan, is a citizen whose business 
ability, civic usefulness and social qualities 
have brought him into justifiable prominence 
in Bay City. Mr. Andrews was born near 
Flint, Michigan, April 12, 1839, and is a son 
of Capt, Bushnell and ]\Iary (Mason) An- 
drews. 

Capt. Bushnell Andrews was born and 
reared in New York, where his military title 
was obtained as a commander of State militia. 
He was a very early settler in Genesee County, 
Michigan, becoming an extensive and success- 
ful farmer in the vicinity of Flint. Both he 
and his wife died there, the latter surviving- 
until the age of 90 years. Their children em- 
braced two sons and one daughter. 

Martin M. Andrews completed the public 
school course at Flint, and then entered Ober- 
lin College. Ohio, in 1859, where the outbreak 
of the Civil War found him a student. An- 
swering the first call for troops, Mr. Andrews- 
enlisted on May 20, 1861, in a company com- 
posed entirely of college students, mustered 
into the United States service as Company C, 
Seventh Reg., 



Ohio Vol. Inf. He was pro- 




MAJ. L. G. WILCOX 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



379 



moted to ist sergeant, and during the last year 
of their first term of enhstment was in com- 
mand of his company. He was then commis- 
sioned 1st Heutenant and appointed adjutant 
of tlie 185th Regiment, Ohio Vol. Inf.; for 
gallant conduct he was later commissioned cap- 
tain, and w-as honorably discharged in 1865. 
His service was one of much danger, hardship 
and varied experience, including the battles of 
Cedar Mountain, Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, 
Chattanooga and the Atlanta campaign, dur- 
ing which time he was a thousand times in im- 
minent danger and ^vas thrice wounded, fortu- 
nately never seriously, as soldiers are accus- 
tomed to reckon injury. His military record 
is one to which he can refer with justifiable 
pride. 

When the time had come to put aside the 
sword and resume peaceful pursuits. Captain 
Andrews repaired to St. Louis, Missouri, and 
accepted a position offered him by one of the 
large wholesale hardware firms of that city. 
In 1875 he came to Bay City, Michigan, and 
associated himself with the Second National 
Bank as bookkeeper, from which position he 
was promoted to that of assistant cashier. The 
bank's first charter expiring in 1894, it was 
reorganized under the title of The Old Second 
National Bank and }ilr. Andrews became 
cashier. 

Mr. .\ndrews' long and close association 
with banking interests here has not excluded 
him either from other business enterprises or 
from taking a prominent part in civic improve- 
ments. He has been of great service to the 
city where his business capacity and high per- 
sonal character made him representative. He 
has been treasurer of the Building & Loan As- 
sociation of Bay City since its organization. 
For several terms he consented to serve as a 
member of the board of education, but subse- 



quently was obliged to resign on account of 
the press of personal business. 

The home of Mr. Andrews is one of the 
beautiful and substantial ones of Bay City, 
and his domestic circle is one of culture and re- 
finement. He married Mary Plum, a native 
of Flint, Michigan, and they have two charm- 
ing, highly accomplished daughters, — Jessie I. 
and Lora A. Both young ladies completed the 
educational course offered by the Bay City 
schools and subsequently graduated at Ober- 
lin College, Ohio. They are highly gifted in 
music and are very prominent in the city's 
choice social life. 

Mr. Andrews was one of the organizers of 
the First Congregational Church of Bay City 
and for years has taken a very active part in 
its work. Recently he has given over a great 
part of his Sunday-school work to his daugh- 
ters. He is a very prominent member of the 
Grand Army of the Republic and has been 
commander of the post many times. He has 
served on the staff of the State commander 
and is identified at present with H. P. JNIorrill 
Post. His other fraternal connections are with 
the Royal League, the Royal Arcanum and the 
Knights of the Macabees. 




AJ. L. G. WTLLCOX, a distin- 
guished niember of the bar of Bay 
County, Michigan, residing in Bay 
City, is now retired from active 
practice. His career has l)een one of brilliancy 
both in the military service of his country and 
in the discharge of the duties of the various 
offices he has been called upon to fill. He is a 
native of Michigan, having been born in Avon 
township, Oakland County, in 1834. He is a 
son of L. J- and Ilopey (Green) Willcox, and 



38o 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



a scion of a family which has borne its part in 
the development of this country from the colo- 
nial period to the present date. His ancestors 
fought in the Revolutionary War and the War 
■of 1812. 

L. J. Willcox, father of our subject, was 
born in Oneida County, New York, in 1803, 
and in 1824 moved to Oakland County, Michi- 
gan, traveling on foot. He settled in Avon 
township where he became a leading business 
man. He founded and for many years con- 
ducted a flouring mill, furnishing a market for 
the grain of the entire country from Lapeer 
County to Ann Arbor. Late in life he sold his 
mill and retired to his farm of 600 acres in 
Avon township, where he resided until his 
death in 1885, aged 82 years. He served as 
supervisor of Avon township, but ne\'er was a 
seeker for political preferment. His wife died 
in 1834, at an early age. 

The subject of this sketch received his pre- 
liminary education in the public schools and in 
the academy at Romeo. He then took the law 
course at Hamilton College at Clinton, New- 
York, from which he was graduated with the 
degree of L. L. B. He then practiced law in 
Detroit until the war broke out, when he orga- 
nized a company of 150 men. He was com- 
missioned captain and his company was en- 
hsted at a part of the Third Regiment, Michi- 
gan Vol. Cav., being sent to St. Louis for train- 
ing. They then went to New Madrid, Mis- 
souri, then to Island No. 10, and thence to 
Pittsburg Landing and Shiloh. He partici- 
pated in the siege of Corinth and went with 
his regiment to Alabama, being placed in com- 
mand at Tuscumbia. He took part in the bat- 
tles of luka and Corinth, and in 1862 was ele- 
vated to the rank of major. His command 
accompanied Grant's army through Missis- 
sippi to Granada, and his soldiers occupied 
Oxford, where he served as provost-marshal at 



the close of the campaign. They spent the win- 
ter of 1862-63 in Tennessee, where they en- 
gaged in frequent skirmishes. While encamped 
near the city of Jackson in March, 1863, oc- 
curred an incident which showed the diplomacy 
of Major Willcox, as well as his ability to view 
a subject broadly and without bias, and to pre- 
sent his views in a manner to win the regard 
even of his bitterest enemies. He was called upon 
by G. D. Penn, who at one time was a captain 
in the Confederate service; Rev. Mr. Harris, a 
brother of the Confederate Governor of Ten- 
nessee : and J. Hall and Mr. Pinkerton, the two 
last named meeting their deaths later at the 
hands of Confederate sympathizers. All were 
residents of Lexington, Henderson County, 
Tennessee. After a friendly conversation on 
general topics relating to local affairs, one of 
the party remarked: "Major, could our people 
be made to see the condition of affairs as you 
do, we think it would lead to a more friendly 
feeling." The following corespondence soon 
took place: 

Lexington, Tenn., March 28. 1S63. 
Major Willcox : 

Dear Sir : — After consulting several citizens in this 
vicinity, I found it met the approbation of all that you 
should address them, and, thereupon, Thursday, April 
2, 1863, was fixed upon for you to do so, and was so 
published throughout the county. I would be much 
pleased to have you call and make my house your home 
while you are among us. The citizens are all anxious 
for you to be here on that date, and I hope you will 
make it convenient to be present. 

Very respectfully, 

G. D. Penn. 

Camp Near Jackson, Tenn., March 28, 1863. 
G. D. Penn, Esq., and others: 

Gentlemen : — It will give me great pleasure to meet 
the citizens of Henderson County. I accept your invi- 
tation, not as a compliment to myself, but as an indi- 
cation of patriotism and an earnest desire on your part 
to mitigate the calamity of this terrible war and recon- 
cile citizens who are now in open conflict with each 
other. I will lend my tongue as readily as my sword 
for the good of the cause; and I desire all, irrespective 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



381 



of political opinions, to be present and assure you no 
person conducting himself peaceably at the meeting, 
whatever may be his sentiments or position, whether 
he be a Confederate soldier or a Union man, shall be 
molested, but will be permitted to depart as freely as 
he comes. Let us have a good old-fashioned citizens' 
meeting, without an element of war about it. 
Your fellow-citizen, 

L. G. WiLLCOX. 

Western Tennessee was at that time over- 
run by both Union and Confederate soldiers 
and such an undertaking as the one proposed 
involved no small risk. But after receiving 
permission from the department commander, 
Major Willcox accepted the invitation. Gen- 
eral Kimball then in command advised him to 
take a large force with him, but he went the 
distance of 28 miles escorted by only eight men, 
and addressed a large meeting composed of 
Southern citizens, some of whom wore the 
Confederate uniform. As a result of the meet- 
ing, an earnest Union feeling was developed in 
that section and a Union force was organized 
in Western Tennessee. Twenty-four days 
later, on April 2Gth, Lieutenant Bingham, 
brother-in-law of our suliject. was killed on the 
road a few miles from Lexington. From 
Jackson the regiment made regular cavalry 
expeditions through Mississippi. When the 
term of service expired, the members returned 
home and reorganized and then returned to the 
field of battle. In the fall of 1864. Major Will- 
cox's health failed and he resigned his com- 
mission and returned to Detroit, where he re- 
sumed the practice of his profession. He was 
soon appointed register of the land ofiice at 
Traverse City, Michigan, a position he filled 
until 1870. Then because of ill health in his 
family, they made a trip to California. In the 
meantime, in connection with E. L. Sprague, he 
had established and edited tlie Traverse Bay 
Eagle. He served one term as prosecuting at- 
torney and circuit court commissioner for An- 



trim County, and later was appointed prosecut- 
ing attorney for Emmet County. For several 
years he was correspondent for the ll'esfeni 
Rural and Chicago Tribune and other publica- 
tions, and has always been a strong, versatile 
and forceful writer. After his return from Cal- 
ifornia, he practiced at Pontiac until appointed 
receiver of public monies at Detroit. In the 
summer of 1885 he became editor of the Bay 
City Tribune, removing to this city at that 
time. After a little more than a year, he was 
appointed assistant prosecuting attorney for 
Bay County, in which position he served two 
years, and next became postinaster of Bay City. 
His popularity is shown by the fact that the 
committee appointed by the then Congressman 
from this district to designate the choice of the 
people, voted unanimously for him among 13 
applicants. He assumed charge of the office 
in May, 1889, receiving a commission for a 
full term dating from January 8, 1890, and 
served five years in all. 

Major Willcox married Azubah Bingham, 
who was born in Watertown, New York, and 
is a daughter of Roswell Bingham, a native of 
New Hampshire. They had three children : 
George, a mechancal engineer and patent at- 
torney of Bay City; Minnie B., deceased; and 
Mabel, who died in infancy. Religiously, the 
members of the Willcox family are Presbyte- 
rians. The Major is past commander of Dick 
Richardson Post, No. 147, G. A. R., of Pon- 
tiac, Michigan; past commander of H. P. iler- 
rill Post, No. 419, G. A. R., of Bay City ; adju- 
tant of U. S. Grant Post, No. 67, G. A. R., of 
Bay City; and a member of tlie Military Order 
of the Loyal Legion of the United States; of 
the National League of Veterans and Sons ; and 
of Bay City Lodge No. 129, F. & A. M. He has 
been a member of the Board of Education some 
years, and was presidential elector-at-large 
when IMcKinley was reelected in 1900. He is 



382 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



a fine orator and one of the best after-dinner 
speakers in the State. He is a RepubHcan in 
politics, but beheves in clean politics, and will 
support no candidate whose methods and char- 
acter are not above reproach. His portrait ac- 
companies this sketch. 




iNST FRANK, one of the prominent 
citizens of Bay City, Michigan, senior 
member of the firm of Ernst Frank 
& Son, general insurance agents, was 
born in Kuernbach. Baden, Germany, Sep- 
tember II, 1829, and is a son of Rev. Johann 
Heinrich and Augusta Dorothea Charlotte 
(Scholl) Frank. 

The Francke family, as the name was 
spelled until the last generation, is one of great 
antiquity. There are not many individuals 
who can clearly trace an unbroken ancestry 
as far back as the early part of the i6th century, 
but Mr. Frank, our subject, enjoys this dis- 
tinction. 

The family is pure German. Hans Francke, 
our subject's great-great-great-great-great- 
grandfather, was born in Karlsdorf. He was 
a landowner and farmer in Tautendorf, Sax- 
on-Altenburg, and died August 31, 1590. On 
February 9, 1574, in Tautendorf, he was mar- 
ried to Katharina Mauers, a daughter of 
George Mauers, in Tautendorf ; she died July 
31, 1611. 

Jakob Francke, the great-great-great-gre^t- 
grandfather, died during a general epidemic, 
in 1 64 1. It is recorded that he was twice mar- 
ried, our subject being a descendant of the 
second union, with Eva Pfessler, who died 
December 8, 1665. 

Johannes Francke. the great-great-great- 
grandfather, was born February 23, 1627, and 
died May 23, 1706. Flis first wife, Katharina, 



died February 4, 1658. On June 20, 1659, in 
Lindenkreuz, he was married to Marie Krah- 
ner, daughter of Heinrich Kralmer. She was 
the ancestress of our subject, and she died Au- 
gust 22, 1700. 

Jakob Francke, the great-great-grandfather, 
was born July 15, 1677 and was buried July 8, 
1755. He was a farmer and landowner. The 
name of his wife was Christine and she was 
buried July 22, 1739. 

Gottfried Francke, the great-grandfather, 
was born May 21, 1714, and was buried Octo- 
ber 29, 1760. He was an extensive farmer in 
Tautendorf. On September, 13, 1747, in Lin- 
denkreuz, he was married to Rosine Beer, a 
daughter of Andreas Beer. 

Hans George Francke, our subject's grand- 
father, was born November 30, 1750, in Tau- 
tendorf, and died February 14, 1812, in Roda, 
Saxon-Altenburg. On May 5, 1778, he was 
married to Susanne Marie Linde, who was 
born September i, 1756, in Poessnen, Saxon- 
Altenburg, and died in Roda, December 12, 
1799. 

Rev. Johann Heinrich Frank, faher of our 
subject, was born December 6, 1794, in Roda, 
Saxon-Altenburg, and died October 8, 1864, in 
Dietlingen, Baden. He married Auguste Doro- 
thea Charlotte Scholl, who was born June 26, 
1794, and died January 17, 1861, in Dietlingen, 
Baden. She was a daughter of a prominent 
preacher in Cochsheim, Baden. Rev. Joliann 
H. Frank was a preacher in the German Luth- 
eran Church. He was a scholarly man, hav- 
ing been thoroughly educated at the University 
of Jena, and at Heidelberg. 

Ernst Frank was 21 years of age when he 
came to America. He had been educated as 
an optician and was skilled in the manufactur- 
ing of mathematical and philosophical instru- 
ments, as well as those of his trade, all of these 
being almost entirely hand-made. He arrived 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



583 



in New York City in April, 1851, and started 
for Saginaw, Michigan, to visit his hrothers 
and sisters, who hved on a farm about six miles 
from the city of Saginaw. This year he de- 
clared his intention to become a citizen of the 
United States, as it was his intention to make 
this country his home. He helped on the farm 
until November, 1851, when he returned to 
New York City to work at his occupation. 
After reaching New York he was employ?d 
first by Benjamin Pike & Sons, opticians, with 
Avhom he continued for two years. In 1852 he 
went to Louisville, Kentucky, and followed his 
trade there for a short time, but in the fall of 
the year 1854 he removed to Milwaukee, Wis- 
consin, where he established a business. He 
continued there until the spring of 1863, and 
then came to Bay City. He opened here a cigar 
and tobacco store and also did something in 
the way of fire insurance, and continued this 
business until 1875. ''vhen he disposed of his 
store in order to give his whole attention to 
insurance. 

Several years after coming to Bay City, 
in 1865, he was elected village treasurer, in the 
year that the place took its present name of 
Bay City. A special election was held and he 
continued as treasurer for four years. An 
active Democrat, Mr. Frank was frequently 
appointed and elected to offices of responsibil- 
ity. During the first administration of Presi- 
dent Cleveland, he served as deputy postmaster 
of Bay City, and in 1889 he was elected city 
treasurer, and served four years in this office. 
He also was supervisor of the town and served 
two years as a member of the School Board. 

After closing out his tobacco business, Mr. 
Frank became the representative for many of 
the leading insurance companies of the coun- 
try, and at present represents 12 of the strong- 
est fire insurance companies, among which may 



be mentioned the Buffalo German ; Concordia 
of Milwaukee; the Milwaukee Mechanics"; the 
Prussian National, of Stettin, Germany; the 
Cooper of Dayton, Ohio ; the Spring Garden 
and the Mechanics' of Philadelphia ; and others. 
He also represents the well-known and substan- 
tial Germania Life Insurance Company of New 
York, and occupies one of the finest offices in 
Bay City, having a suite of rooms in the Crape- 
Block. 

Since 1902, Mr. Frank has had his son, 
Ernst Edward Frank, in partnership with him, 
and the business is conducted under the firm 
name of Ernst Frank & Son. The younger 
member of the firm was born in Bay City, June 
II, 1875. His education was secured in the 
common and high schools. Previous to becom- 
ing associated with his father, he was employed 
in a clerical position in one of the city banks. 

Our subject was married October 20, 1859, • 
to Emma Scheurmann, who was born in Baden, 
Germany, February 21, 1840, and is a daughter 
of Ernst Scheurmann, of Nagold-W'urtem- 
burg. Eleven children were born to this union, 
seven of whom reached maturity, namely : 
Ottilie Sophie, born April 27, 1865, wdio mar- 
ried William A. DeMars on January 5, 1893; 
Bella Emilie, born March 19, 1869, who mar- 
ried Charles Neil Ghent, of Alpena, Michigan, 
on June 9, 1892; Emma Stephanie, born Jan- 
uary 20, 1871, who married William J. Hogan, 
of Warren, Pennsylvania, on February 19, 
1901 ; Marie Lina, torn October 4, 1873. who 
married Ubald R. Loranger, of Bay City, on 
October 2, 1895; Ernst Edward, of Bay City; 
Bertha Christiana, born April 4, 1877; and 
]\Iartha Johanna, born September 23, 1879, 
who married Emil Etzold, of Bay City, on 
June 9, 1904. The family belong to the Ger- 
men Lutheran Church. It is one of the leading 
German families of Bay City. 



384 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 




OX. ANDREW CROSBY MAX- 
WELL. After a long and useful 
life of 70 years, crowned with hon- 
ors and blessed with family affection 
and public esteem, the late Judge Andrew 
Crosby Maxwell died at his home in Bay City, 
Michigan, on February 15, 1901. Judge Max- 
well was born on July 11, 1831, at Pompey 
Hill, X^ew York, and was a son of Robert and 
Margaret (Crosby) Maxwell. 

The parents of Judge ]\Iaxwell were born 
and reared in Scotland, which country they left 
on their wedding day, in the year 18 19, taking 
passage for New York, which port they safely 
reached and subsequently established a home 
at Pompey Hill, where our subject was born. 
In 1844 Robert Maxwell remo\ed with his 
family to Oakland County, Michigan, where 
he died in 1864. His widow died three years 
later. Their family consisted of three sons and 
five daughters, Andrew C. being the fourth 
in order of birth. One of his brothers, Judge 
Samuel Maxwell, became very distinguished, 
a member of the Supreme Court of Nebraska 
and a law lecturer in the University of Mich- 
igan and X^orthwestern University at Chicago. 
Until the family removed to Michigan, An- 
drew C. ALaxwell attended the Pompey Hill 
schools, and then assisted his father for a year 
in clearing up the Michigan farm, returning 
then for two years to New York, where he also 
engaged in farm work. In 1847 ^^^ came again 
to ]\Iichigan and worked for two years, earn- 
ing the money with which to pursue certain 
studies at Oberlin College, where he remained 
until 1852. By this time his choice of life work 
had been made and when he returned to Oak- 
land County, he entered upon the study of the 
law, under the direction of Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor O. D. Richardson. During the winter 
of 1852-53, while teaching school in Lapeer 
County, he continued his law studies and in 



1853 was admitted to practice. In the fall of 

1854 he was elected prosecuting attorney of 
Lapeer County, an office he resigned after 
capably filling it for one year. In 1857 he 
moved with his family to Bay City. He had 
been admitted to practice before the Supreme 
Court at Washington, D. C, and frequently 
argued before that august body. 

In the meantime he had entered actively 
into politics, identifying himself with the Dem- 
ocratic party, which was not in the majority 
in this section. His personal popularity, how- 
ever, made him a formidable antagonist in the 
political field, and in 1864 he was elected to 
the State Legislature. In 1866 his party, on 
the strength of his fine record in the lower 
house, made him its candidate for the State 
Senate, and in the ensuing contest at the polls 
he came within a very few votes of election. 
He continued to be one of the party leaders 
and in 1876 he was sent as a delegate to the 
Democratic X^ational Convention at St. Louis. 
In 1882 he was again honored by being selected 
by his party as their congressional standard- 
bearer, but the Republican forces were too 
strong in this section to allow any Democrat, 
however popular, to be elected. His only other 
public office was that of circuit judge to which 
he was elected in 1893, a selection agreeable 
to all factions. 

During the many years that Judge Max- 
well was active in public life, his personal char- 
acter was never assailed nor his legal knowl- 
edge or judicial impartiality questioned. He 
was public-spirited to a marked degree and was 
tireless in his efforts to secure good govern- 
ment for Bay City and to promote her best in- 
terests to the extent of his ability. It was 
mainly through his efforts and influence that 
the city secured the large government appro- 
priation, wdnch assured the dredging of the 
mouth of the Saginaw River for the first time. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



385 



He also was mainly instrumental in securing 
the construction of the famous stone roads of 
Bay County and the Third street bridge between 
Bay City and its neighbor across the river, — 
West Bay City. 

Judge Maxwell was a man of charming 
personality, dignified and courteous in manner, 
yet so filled with the milk of human kindness 
that he is best recalled on account of his loyal 
friendships and genial generosity. He had a 
penchant for practical jokes and few of his 
intimates could boast of ever excelling him in 
this line. 

In December, 1853, Judge Maxwell was 
married to Sarah Hart, of Lapeer, Michigan, 
w'ho died December 27, 1891. She was a 
lovely Christian character, a daughter of Oliver 
B. and Amanda (Harrison) Hart, a pioneer 
family of Lapeer County. They had five chil- 
dren, two of whom are living: Robert and 
Jeannette. The former has large business in- 
terests, both at Bay City and at Rochester, 
New York, and divides his time between the 
two points, spending his summers at Rochester 
and his winters at Bay City. The daughter 
is Mrs. James B. Hammond, of Boston, Mas- 
sachusetts. In June, 1896, Judge Maxwell 
married Mrs. Edna Merrill, of South Bay City, 
wdio survives him. 




VRUS A. GAIL, one of the promi- 
nent and substantial citizens of Bay 
County, Michigan, an experienced 
lumberman and now filling the re- 
sponsible position of head filer for the Diamond 
Match Company of Biddeford, Maine, also 
owns a fine farm of 80 acres, which is situated 
in section 8, Merritt township. Mr. Gail was 
born in Erie County, New York, Neveml)er 30. 
1849. and is a son of Hugh A. and Electa M. 
(McKeen) Gail. 



The father of Mr. Gail was born in Erie 
County, New York, and died in the Pennsylva- 
nia oil regions in 1864, aged 45 years. He was 
a farmer and well-digger and after coming to 
Michigan, in 1861, he dug many wells and salt- 
pits and subsequently was engaged in digging 
oil-wells in Pennsylvania. The mother of Mr. 
Gail has reached the age of 78 years and resides 
at Pequaming, Michigan. The children in the 
parental family were : Allen \V.,of Bay County ;. 
Cyrus A., of this sketch ; Arthur A., Frank A. 
and Edwin D., of Pequaming: Ida E. (!Mrs. 
Sanders), of Mobile, Alabama; Ellen D. (Mrs. 
Osterhout), deceased; and Annie, who died 
young. 

Cyrus A. Gail was seven years old when his 
parents came to Bay City in the spring of 1861, 
and he attended school here, during the winter 
seasons, until he was 18 years of age. Since 
the age of 11 years he has spent but one sea- 
son out of a sawmill, beginning work at the 
bottom of the ladder, making shingles at 50 
cents a day. Now, as head filer with one of the 
great corporations of the world, he commands 
a large salary. Mr. Gail has held all interme- 
diate positions, has been sawyer, superintend- 
ent in the woods, foreman in the woods, pros- 
pector and selector and was employed for three- 
years as head filer in the "Spanish ]\Iills," on 
Georgian Bay, Ontario. For a period of 10 
years, he was paid at the rate of $6 per day 
by N. B. Bradley, the great lumberman of this 
section, and he still follows this business in 
which he has become an expert. Some six years 
ago, Mr. Gail purchased his farm for his 
sons, who conduct general farming operations 
upon it. 

In 1872, Mr. Gail was married to Elnora 
Rhodes, who was torn at Battle Creek, IMich- 
igan, and died at Bay City, at the age of 30- 
}ears. She was the mother of three children : 
Hugh A., of Bay City; Louis H., living at 



.386 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



home; and Gertrude, who died aged 17 years. 
In ^892, Mr. Gail married Carrie Darhng, who 
was born November 20, 1850, in Seneca Coun- 
ty, New York. She is a daughter of Lewis L. 
and Jane (Miller) Darling, natives of Seneca 
County. Mrs. Gail came to Bay County at the 
age of 19 years. She is a member of the Bap- 
tist Church at Bay City. 

Mr. Gail has lived too busy a life of indi- 
vidual effort to have had time to devote much 
attention to politics. He is a valued member 
■of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at 
Bay City. In time of service, Mr. Gail prob- 
ably holds the record, in his line of head filer, 
and his retention by the great company with 
which he is connected places him at the head of 
the list in point of skill. 




RXST A. \MTTWER, M. D.. a phy- 
sician and surgeon of Auburn, Bay 
County, Michigan, was born in 
Switzerland, February 27, 1876, and 
attended the schools of Wurtemberg, to which 
kingdom his father moved from Switzerland, 
and later a gymnasium, which corresponds to a 
high school of this country. He then attended 
a business college to fit himself for handling 
the commercial end of his father's cheese busi- 
ness, but continued only three months after 
graduation. 

Coming to America in 1893. our subject 
located at Elkton, Michigan, and there attended 
school to perfect his knowledge of the English 
language. In 1896 he visited his parents in 
Germany, returning to this country in the fall 
of the same year and locating at Saginaw. He 
began the reading of medicine under the pre- 
ceptorship of Dr. Otto Frenzel, of Pigeon, 
Michigan, and in 1900 completed a four-years 
'Course in the Saginaw Vallev Medical College 



which has since been consolidated with the 
Michigan College of Medicine and Surgery 
at Detroit. After graduation. Dr. Wittwer 
settled at Auburn, in Williams township. Bay 
County, where he has built up a good practice. 
His territory is wide and professional compe- 
tition limited. He has the confidence and re- 
spect of patients, and has a wide acquaintance- 
ship throughout this section. He is a member 
of the Bay County Medical Society, Michigan 
State Medical Society and American Medical 
Association. 

On October 18, 1900,, Dr. Wittwer was 
united in marriage with Anna Bryce, of Sagi- 
naw, and they reside in a large and comforta- 
ble home which he erected. Religiously, they 
are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. The Doctor is a Republican in poli- 
tics, and serves as health officer of the town- 
ship, and as physician of the poor of Williams 
and Beaver townships. 




leading 



nence 



OEHRINGER BROTHERS 

florists of Bay City, Michigan, where 
they have erected a large number of 
greenhouses, have attained promi- 
and established an extensive trade 
throughout the part of the State lying north 
of Bay City. The firm consists of Albert G. 
and Rudolph G. Boehringer, who have studied 
and experimented in horticulture in a scienti- 
fic manner, thereby acquiring a knowledge by 
which they have been enabled to excel and meet 
every kind of competition in their line of busi- 
ness. They are men of energy and enterprise, 
and their success has only come through their 
own persistent efforts. They are natives of 
Wurtemberg, Germany, and sons of Rudolph 
and Barbara (Widner) Boehringer. 

Rudolph Boehringer, a son of Gabriel Boeh- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



387 



ringer, was born in Wurtemlaerg, Germany, 
and died there on February 18, 1885, at the 
age of 48 years. He was a prominent farmer 
and principally engaged in the culture of sugar 
beets and hops, although he raised grain 
enough to keep the cattle and horses, with 
which his farm was well stocked. He also con- 
tracted with a beet sugar factory to take charge 
of the annual crop of sugar beets from 1 2 to 15 
villages, — pitting, storing and protecting them 
from frost until the factory was ready to use 
them, when he would be required to hire scores 
of teams and send the beets to the factory by 
the wagon load. He was united in marriage 
with Barbara Widner, who was born October 
8, 1840, and now resides in Bay City. She is a 
member of the German Lutheran Church in 
Bay City; her husband belonged to the Luth- 
eran Church in Germany. They were parents 
of seven children, four of whnm grew to ma- 
turity, namely: Pauline, wife of George Nus- 
selt, of Bay City ; Albert G. ; Rudolph G. ; and 
Amelia, of Bay City. 

Albert Boehringer, an uncle of our sub- 
jects, came to America in 186S, and located in 
Bay City, Michigan, where he thereafter lived 
throughout the remainder of his life. In 1885, 
he made a visit to Germany, and having no 
children of his own, persuaded Albert G. Boeh- 
ringer, his nephew, to come to Bay City with 
him. 

Albert G. Boehringer was born September 
20, 1868, and was educated in his native land. 
After coming to this country with his uncle, 
he secured employment with the John C. Irvine 
Greenhouse Company and continued to work 
for them for five years, in the meantime attend- 
ing night school in Bay City three winters, after 
which he took a course of special studies in 
the Michigan Agricultural College at Lansing. 
In August. 189,3. he formed a partnership with 
liis brother, Rudolph G. Boehringer. under the 



firm name of Boehringer Brothers, and built 
two small greenhouses in Bay City. They first 
gave their attention equally to vegetables, such 
as lettuce and radishes, and to cut flowers and 
potted plants. Almost every year since the in- 
ception of the business, they have added a 
greenhouse, until at the present time they have 
12, all of which are modernly equipped and 
devoted to the culture of flowers for cutting 
and to potted plants. There are more than 
35,000 square feet of glass covering the green- 
houses; two horizontal tubular boilers of 40 
horsepower each furnish steam heat, which is 
supplied to the dift'erent houses through more 
than one and a half miles of steam pipes. They 
are growers of new varieties of carnations, for 
a period of 10 years having been growing and 
improving seedlings of carnations by hybridi- 
zation and fertilization, a record of each plant 
being kept from one generation to another. 
They gi\-e employment to five men and two 
girls, in addition to which they devote their own 
attention exclusively to the business. Their re- 
markable success may be attributed to their 
technical knowledge and the scientific methods 
they pursue. 

Albert G. Boehringer was united in mar- 
riage with Marguerite Weber, a daughter of 
Philip Weber, of Bay City, and they have the 
following offspring: Alma M. ; Anne Dora 
Minnie; Nelda Gertrude; Edwin Oscar; and 
Carl Herman. They are members of the Ger- 
man Lutheran Church, of which Mr. Boehrin- 
ger is trustee and financial secretary. He is 
also vice-president of the Bethel Aid Society. 

Rudolph G. Boehringer was born June 23, 
1872, and received his educational training in 
his native land. He came to America in 1888 
and located in Bay City, Alichigan, where he 
entered the employ of the John C. Irvine Green- 
house Company. He continued with that com- 
pany four and a half years, and then, after 



388 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



spending one year in the employ of Charles 
Breitmeyer, formed the partnership with his 
brother, above mentioned. He is a man of 
ability, honesty and integrity, and has forced 
his way to the front through merit. 

Rudolph G. Boehringer was united in mar- 
riage with Emma Gansser, a daughter of Au- 
gust Gansser of Bay City, and they have three 
children, as follows : Elsie, Clara and Ru- 
dolph E. Religiously, they are memters of 
the German Lutheran Church. Fraternally, he 
is a member of the Knights of the Loyal Guard. 




ILLIAM McEWAN, deceased, was 
for many years one of the promi- 
nent business citizens of Bay City, 
Michigan. He was identified with 
many different enterprises, was one of the 
promoters of the present street railway system 
of Bay City and was a lumber manufacturer 
for many years. He was born in Glasgow, 
Scotland, March lo, 1824, and was a son of 
William and Margaret (Hunter) McEwan. 

William McEwan, Sr., who was a native 
of Scotland, came to America in 1848, and 
lived first in New York City a few months, 
then in Detroit two years, and still later in 
Chicago, but never engaged in business in this 
country. He died in i860, aged 78 years. He 
married Margaret Hunter, a daughter of Alex- 
ander Hunter, of Scotland, and they became 
parents of seven children, who grew to matur- 
ity, namely: Alexander, deceased; Mary, de- 
ceased: Margaret, deceased: Elizabeth, de- 
ceased ; Mathilda, wife of Solomon Presley, of 
Bay City: John, deceased; and William. Re- 
ligiously, the family were Presbyterians. 

William McEwan in early life learned the 
trade of a pattern-maker and machinist at the 
great steamship-building plant of George Na- 



pier in Glasgow. The noise atending the work 
was probably what caused a slight deafness 
with which he was afflicted in after years. After 
coming to America he followed his trade in 
Chicago and Detroit, and during spare time he 
and his brother, Alexander, built sawmill ma- 
chinery which they brought to Bay City. They 
purchased a mill-site of James Fraser, who 
afterward became father-in-law of our subject. 
Alexander and William McEwan formed a 
partnership under the name and title of Mc- 
Ewan Brothers, and later another brother, 
John, was taken into the partnership. After 
the death of Alexander, which occurred about 
1854 or 1855, William and John continued the 
business until 1872, when John purchased the 
former's interest and continued in the business 
until his death in 1882. They were extensive 
manufacturers of lumber and in the early days 
shipped largely to Sherifif, Shepherd & Smith, 
of Chicago. About 1865, William McEwan 
formed a partnership \vith John J. Fraser, 
under the firm name of McEwan & Fraser, and 
operated what later was known as the "Fulsom 
& Arnold Mill," continuing about one year 
until Mr. Eraser's death. In the meantime he 
had continued the partnership with his brother. 
In addition to his other interests he helped in 
promoting the street railway system of Bay 
City and superintended its construction. In 
1857 he built the first grist mill in Bay City, 
operated it for some years and then sold to 
Harry Griswold. He and his brother opened 
a salt-block and operated it for a number of 
years. From about 1868 until his death in 
1887, Mr. McEwan was retired from business 
activity, with the exception of looking after 
the property of himself and wife. As a busi- 
ness man he was unexcelled, success attending 
his efforts on every hand. His life consisted 
of business and home affairs to the exclusion 
of all else, and when he was not found at his 




HON. GEORGE P. COBB 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



391 



place of business he was almost certain to be 
at home in the happy companionship of his 
wife and children. 

On February 4, 1858, Mr. McEwan was 
united in marriage with Annie Eraser, who was 
born July 30, 1836, and is a daughter of James 
and Elizabeth (Busby) Eraser. A biographi- 
cal record of her father and his family appears 
elsewhere in this work. She is a woman of 
estimalile character and has many friends in 
the vicinity of Bay City, where she has lived 
so many years. This union resulted in the fol- 
lowing offspring: James, born December 4, 
1858, deceased May 13, 1877; William H., 
born October 23. i860, who is a resident of 
Seattle, Washington; Alexander F., torn De- 
cember 29, 1862, who with his brother, Wil- 
liam H., is in the lumber business in Seattle; 
Allan, born March 29, 1865, who lives in Bay 
City; Jessie, born January 29, 1868, who mar- 
ried Walter Tompkins of Tomkins' Cove, New 
York, and died June 6, 1895 ; and Marion, born 
September 28, 1878, and deceased November 
15, 1894. 




OX. GEORGE P. COBB, a lawyer of 
high repute, residing in Bay City, 
Michigan, whose portrait accompa- 
nies this sketch, was formerly judge 
of the 1 8th Judicial Circuit of Michigan, com- 
prised of Bay, Arenac and Gladwyn counties. 
Judge Cobb was born April 13, 1841, in 
York township, Livingston County, New 
York, and is the only son of Elijah V. and 
Lucy H. (Pomeroy) Cobb. Elijah V. Cobb, 
who followed the profession of a teacher, was 
Imrn of New England parentage in Oneida 
County, New York, in 181 4. He moved with 
his family to Rochester, New York, in 1842. 
There they lived until 1855. 

The father of Elijah V. Cobb was a native 



of Massachusetts. He was drafted in the War 
of 1812, and died from disease contracted in 
the service. Of his two children. Albert died 
at the age of 76 years, and Elijah V. is still 
living, in his 91st year. The latter was reared 
on a farm and came to Michigan in 1855. Fof 
five years he lived in Lenawee County, and 
then moved to Ann Arbor, where he remained 
until 1884. At that period he retired from 
active life and has since made his home with 
his children. 

Elijah V. Cobb was married in January, 
1840, in New York State, to Lucy H. Pomroy, 
who was a native of Ontario County in that 
State. She died at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 
1877. Their union resulted in three children, 
namely : George P. ; Mrs. Mary A. Pomeroy, a 
widow of Bay City; and Mrs. Augusta T. 
Wood, who died in Bay City in 1893. 

George P. Cobb was reared on a farm, and 
received his early mental training in the public 
schools. In 1855 he accompanied his parents 
to the northern part of Lenawee County, Mich- 
igan, where he remained on the farm for five 
years. During that period he spent the winter 
months in attendance at the Ypsilanti Semi- 
nary, pursuing, in the meantime, an extended 
course of study under his father's supervision 
at home. Subsequently, he moved with his 
parents to Ann Arbor, where he attended high 
school and also received private instruction. 

In the spring of i860. Judge Cobb began 
teaching school and continued in this occupa- 
tion until 1865, having charge of schools in 
Macon, Lenawee County, in the city and town- 
ship of Ann Arbor, and in Salem, Superior and 
Pittsfield. Early in 1865, he enlisted in the 
Fifth Regiment, Michigan Vol. Cav., and was 
at City Point, Virginia, at the time of General 
Lee's surrender. After his service in Virginia, 
he marched West from Leavenworth, Kansas, 
having been transferred to Company B, Sev- 



39- 



HISTORY OF BAY COUXTY 



enth Reg., ^Michigan Vol. Cav., and accompa- 
nied the expedition sent across the plains to 
Salt Lake City, riding an old cavalrj^ horse 
1,200 miles. The route was from Leaven- 
worth, Kansas, by way of Fort Kearney and 
Julesburg, to Fort Collins, Colorado, and 
thence to Fort Bridger and Salt Lake City. 
He was honorably discharged February 16, 
1866, at Camp Douglas, Utah Territory. 

In the fall of 1866, Judge Cobb entered the 
law department of the University of Michigan, 
where he graduated with the class of 1868. In 
September of that year he located at Bay City, 
and shortly afterward opened a law office. His 
reminiscences of the then small city of about 
7,000 population would fill a chapter. He re- 
members the time when there was but one 
bridge across the river at this point. 

In July. 1870, Judge Cobb became a mem- 
ber of the firm of Grier, McDonell & Cobb. In 
1871, Mr. Grier became circuit judge, and died 
in 1872. The firm continued as ]\IcDonell & 
Cobb until 1874, and is now McDonell & Duffy. 
■In 1873, ]Mr. Cobb was elected supervisor of 
the Third Ward of Bay City and served as such 
during 1873 and 1874. In 1880 he was elected 
State Representative and served in the House 
during the two sessions of 1881-82. From the 
spring of 1879 until January i, 1888, the Judge 
was associated in practice with Hon. J. W. Mc- 
ISIath. He assumed the duties of circuit judge 
on the latter date, having been elected to that 
office in the spring of 1887. 

When in the Legislature, ^Ir. Cobb was a 
member of the committees on insurance and 
ways and means, and introduced the bill that 
resulted in the adoption of what is known 
among insurance men as the "Michigan Stand- 
ard Policy." He was also active in securing 
the passage of the noted Ontonagon &: Brule 
River Railroad bilk and of the tax law of 1882. 
He was a member of the special committee ap- 



pointed to investigate the charges of miscon- 
duct against the management of the State Re- 
formatory at Ionia. In 1881, he was appointed 
a member of the visiting board of Albion Col- 
lege. In local politics, he has never had an 
inclination to figure. His offices are located on 
the corner of Adams street and Center avenue. 

On November i, 1S71. the subject of this 
sketch married Laura IMunger, a daughter of 
the late Algernon S. Munger, of Bay City. Mr. 
Munger was one of the first settlers of the city, 
and one of the most active promoters of its 
various interests. He was one of the organiz- 
ers of the East Saginaw & Bay City Railroad, 
now a part of the Pere Marquette system. He 
served as mayor, county treasurer and super- 
visor, and was always identified with measures 
tending to promote the public welfare. His 
daughter, Mrs. Cobb, was born in Cass County, 
Michigan; her parents removed, when she was 
a child, to Bay City, where she was reared and 
educated. To Judge Cobb and his estimable 
wife have been born two children, namely : 
Susan, who died at the age of six years ; and 
George Arthur, born August 3, 1875, educated 
in the Bay City schools and Alma College, and 
married to Maggie Parker on July 23, 1892. 

Judge Cobb was grand regent of the Royal 
Arcanum of ]Michigan for 1884, having been 
vice grand regent in 1883. He is also a mem- 
ber of the National Union. He belongs to H. 
P. Merrill Post, No. 419, G. A. R., and was a 
charter member of that post as well as of U. 
S. Grant Post, No. 67. He has held the offices 
of quartermaster, adjutant, chaplain, comman- 
der and trustee. He was a delegate to the Na- 
tional Encampment held in Boston in 1890. 
He is now past commander of two posts, hav- 
ing filled every position of trust. 

Judge Cobb and his wife are members of 
the First Presbyterian Church, of Bay City. 
The Judge was secretary of the board of trus- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



393 



tees of this church for a numljer of years and 
also served as treasurer. He has been a mem- 
ber of the sessions for 1 1 years, and officiated 
as clerk during: half of that time. 




jlOHN CARROLL, proprietor of the lar- 
gest wholesale produce and fruit es- 
tablishment of Bay County, Michigan, 
is one of the most enterprising and 
successful business men of Bay City. He began 
life under adverse circumstances, and it was 
only after years of hard and consistent effort 
that he was enabled to take his place among the 
leaders in the business world of this locality. 
He was born in County Kerry, Ireland, in 
1848. and is a son of Daniel and Catherine 
(Welsh) Carroll, both natives of Ireland. Our 
subject was two years old when his mother 
died and his father soon after emigrated to 
America, leaving him in Ireland with a younger 
sister, Margaret, who is now the wife of Pat- 
rick Cahill, of Orange County, New York. 

John Carroll was given only an ordinary 
■education in Ireland. On September 14, 1865, 
he landed at New York, where he turned his 
hand to various occupations in an endeavor to 
earn an honest living. Removing to Orange 
County, New York, he worked on a farm, but 
not having a taste for that life he returned to 
New York City, where he was employed for a 
time as a laborer on a railroad. Later he did 
contract work and superintended the construc- 
tion of some buildings. He was then called 
upon to assume management of the old Alan- 
hattan Hotel at No. 29 Centre street. New 
York, while its owner was abroad, and this he 
did successfully for a period of nine months. 
He later made application for a position on the 
New York police force. Out of 45 who took 
the examination, he was one of the five that 
passed, but he decided to go West before he 



qualified. In 1869, he came to Bay City. INIich- 
igan, and opened a butcher shop. He had good 
backing but not caring to use another's money 
he closed that business, and engaged as mana- 
ger in the same line at the same stand, contin- 
uing there atout one year. He then engaged 
in draying for a few months, when he again 
started in the butcher business in association 
with D. F. Kenny, to whom he later sold out. 
]Mr. Carroll then engaged in farming and buy- 
ing cattle and slaughtering for the market. 
After about five years, he returned to Bay City 
and engaged with Hammond, Standish & 
Company, as manager of their fresh meat de- 
partment. He remained three years and then 
again started in for himself. The firm of 
Logan & Carroll, produce merchants, was es- 
tablished in 1889 and continued for three years. 
After the dissolution of the partnership, the 
firm of Carroll, Hurley & Company came into 
existence and continued for one year, being 
succeeded by that of Carroll & Rose. Later, 
Mr.. Carroll purchased his present building and 
has since continued alone. He was the first 
produce merchant in Bay City to handle 
oranges in car-load lots, and the first and the 
only one in the city to make a business of 
storing eggs. He is a wholesale dealer in pro- 
duce, fruits, confectionery and the "Peerless" 
brand of Baltimore oysters. His store, located 
at No. 113 Third street, has ample storage 
facilities connected therewith. 'Mv. Carroll has 
been highly successful and has every reason 
for feeling proud of the rapid progress he has 
made. He erected four dwellings in South 
Bay City at a cost of from $1,200 to $2,500 
each, and has a beautiful home on Lincoln 
street, which cost $4,000. He has served as 
highway commissioner of the village of Ports- 
mouth, and as supervisor of Bay City two 
terms. 

In 1872, ]\Ir. Carroll was united in mar- 



394 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



riage with Annie Joyce, a native of Ontario, 
Canada, and they had i6 children, lo of whom 
are hving, namely : Daniel, interested in the 
instu'ance business, who married Rosalie Foley ; 
and Catherine, Maud, Madge, ^lichael, Jett, 
John, Jr., Rhea, Beatrice and Fidelis, who are 
at home. Religiously, the family are members 
of St. James' Catholic Church. When the 
church and the parochial school were erected, 
Mr. Carroll was placed on the building com- 
mittees. Fraternally, he is a member of the 
Elks; Knights of Columbus; K. of M.; the 
C. M. B. A. ; and an honorary member of the 
Ancient Order of Hibernians. 



LLEX L. STEWART, one of the 
pioneer business men of Bay City, 
}ilichigan, was here engaged in the 
early history of the place in the boot 
and shoe business and afterward was engaged 
in the bakery business on the corner of Center 
and Saginaw streets. Since 1874 he has de- 
voted his attention to fire insurance and real 
estate. He was born in Eaton, Madison 
County, New York, December i, 1826, and is 
a son of Lemuel and Lydia (Barstow) Stew- 
art, and grandson of William and Polly 
Stewart. 

William Stewart, the grandfather, w^as born 
in Scotland and came to America in colonial 
days, becoming a farmer of New York, in 
which State he died. He was a "minute-man" 
during the Revolution; he was taken prisoner 
by General Burgoyne and was marched to 
Quebec where he was held captive. His wife, 
Polly, was born in the North of Ireland, July 
I, 1748, and died June 13, 1848. aged almost 
100 years. Her home at ^\'hitehall, New 
York, was for a time the headquarters of Gen- 
eral Burgoyne on his march to Saratoga. They 
had two sons, — Lemuel and Addison. 



Lemuel Stewart was born at Whitehall, 
New York, June 28. 1773. When a young 
man, he took up wild land in the then almost 
wilderness of Madison County, New York, and 
followed farming there throughout the remain- 
der of his life. dying May 5. 1849. He was twice 
married, by his first marriage having nine chil- 
dren. He married for his second wife Lydia 
Barstow, who was born July 14, 1785, and 
died October 10, 1854. They had three chil- 
dren, as follows : Nancy, Prudence and Allen 
L. Nancy, born in 1819, and deceased No- 
vember 29, 1899, was the wife of Elias Bunip^ 
of Flint, Michigan. Prudence, wdio is living 
in Kansas City, Missouri, at the age of 80 
years, is the wife of Addison Gage, by whom 
she had three children, of whom a son and 
daughter are living at the present time. 

Allen L. Stewart, the youngest of the chil- 
dren born to his parents, was reared on a fann 
and attended district school, also attending 
academy at Morrisonville, the county seat, one 
year. He then taught school in different dis- 
tricts for two years, among his pupils being 
Governor Bliss and the latter's younger broth- 
ers and sisters. When he was a young man,, 
his father died, and Allen purchased the old 
homestead, which he conducted about three- 
years. Two years after his marriage, he re- 
moved to Flint, Michigan, in 1856, and en- 
gaged as clerk in the store of Samuel Warren. 
In the spring of 1857 he bought out the Hig- 
gins Brothers' shoe business on Saginaw street 
in Flint, which he conducted until 1861, when 
he removed to East Saginaw, where he was 
soon after burned out, losing all his stock. He 
then returned to Flint and clerked t\\o years- 
for Baker & Ripley, shoe dealers, until 1863, 
when he removed to Bay City and opened a 
shoe store on Water street, near the corner of 
Sixth. The following July occurred the great 
fire which swept away so much of the city, but 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



395 



saving a large amount of liis stock, ilr. Stew- 
art again opened a store on Water street. He 
sold out in 1865 and purchased a business cor- 
ner on Fourth and Saginaw streets, where he 
established a bakery in the fall of that year. 
In 1866 he purchased land and built a brick 
block on the corner of Saginaw and Center 
streets, the first good business block erected on 
Saginaw street at that time. This Iniilding 
has a frontage of 20 feet, a depth of 100 feet, 
and is two stories high, and in it he has had 
his offices for many years. Here he established 
his bakery which he conducted until 1874, when 
he sold out and turned his attention to the fire 
insurance business, representing a State com- 
pany, whose head office was at Lansing. In 
connection with his insurance agency, he later 
engaged in the real estate business, and con- 
tinues to be interested in both lines at the pres- 
ent time. He has always been a man of the 
greatest activity and enterprise, and has left 
his imprint on the progress and development of 
this community. He is well informed on public 
events, possesses a retentive memory and easily 
recalls the details of early life in Bay City. 

On February 22, 1854, ]Mr. Stewart was 
married in Madison County, New York, to 
Pamelia Wentz, who was born in Binghamp- 
ton. New York, and was a daughter of Wil- 
liam Wentz, whose parents came to this coun- 
try from Germany. She died November 8, 
1901, lea\-ing one son, Sydney Holmes Stew- 
art, born in Bay City, Michigan, December 19, 
1864, and now prospecting in Alaska, who 
married Carrie Nellis in 1885 and has a daugh- 
ter, — Elsie, — born I\Iarch 22, 1893. 

Mr. Stewart is one of the oldest ]\Iasons 
in Bay City, having joined the order in 1864. 
In 1884 he joined Blanchard Chapter, and 
Bay City Commandery. During 1884-85 he 
served as w^orshipful master of Bay City Lodge, 
No. 129, F. & A. M., and at the present time 



is treasurer of the lodge. He has filled nearly 
al the offices in Bay City Commandery and in 
1893 was eminent commander. In 1887 he 
joined the Michigan Consistory, and has taken 
the 33rd degree, Scottish Rite, being now the 
head of Rose Croix Chapter, A. A. S. R. He 
is president of the board of directors of the 
Masonic Temple Association. Mr. Stewart is 
a member of the Universalist Church, and has 
served as clerk and trustee a number of years. 
He cast his first vote in Michigan for John C. 
Freemont for President, and has always been 
a Republican, although taking no active part 
in political afifairs. 




■-ORGE S. COLE. It would not be a 
very difficult matter for a stranger 
traveling through Monitor township. 
Bay County, to locate the prosperous 
farmers, and the general air of thrift and com- 
fort surrounding the home of George S. Cole, 
in section 22, would immediately attract atten- 
tion. This fine farm of 80 acres is well-situated 
and finely improved. Mr. Cole was born in 
New Jersey and is a son of Samuel and Sarah 
(Shafer) Cole. 

Samuel Cole was born in Bucks County, 
Pennsylvania, of German parents, and had four 
brothers and one sister, mmel\' : Aaron, 
Michael, John, Jacob, and Catherine, all now 
deceased. In his younger days he worked at 
shoemaking in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 
and then bought a farm of 95 acres, in Sussex 
County, New Jersey, where he lived until 1867, 
when he sold that property and purchased a 
farm of 178 acres in Warren County, New 
Jersey, which continued to be his home to the 
day of his death at the age of 85 years. After 
becoming a resident of New Jersey, he mar- 
ried Sarah Shafer. who was a native of that 



396 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



State. Their children were: Lavina, wife of 
M. Snover, a farmer of Blair township, War- 
ren County, New Jersey; Sarah, wife of ^\'il- 
lis Ragan, of Newton, New Jersey: George S., 
of this sketch ; Nathan, a farmer of Aurora, 
Nebraska; Amanda (Castner), of Newton, 
New Jersey; Mary, wife of Marshall Snover, 
a farmer of Blair township, and Samuel, a 
farmer of Hardwick township. Warren County, 
New Jersey. Our subject's father was a stanch 
Democrat and held several township offices. 
He and his wife were members of the Dutch 
Reformed Church. 

In 1877, George S. Cole came to ^lichigan 
and during one winter attended school at Ox- 
ford, Oakland County. He then spent three 
years in farm work before he purchased an 
80-acre farm in Tuscola County. Later he 
gave up farming there, and in 1882 came to 
Bay City, where he worked two years in the 
"Detroit Mill," selling his farm in the mean- 
time. For 1 1 years he filled the position of 
night watchman at this mill. In 1893 he 
bought his present farm of 80 acres and has 
carried on general farming ever since. He 
has taken a deep interest in his property and has 
spared neither labor nor expense in making it 
attractive, valuable and comfortable. In 1900 
he erected his fine, modern, brick residence, 
which is heated by a complete hot air system 
and resembles a city home in its comforts and 
conveniences. He also erected a large barn, 
wagon house and all necessary outbuildings. 
His grounds are kept in repair and the place is 
one of the ideal rural homes of [Monitor town- 
ship. 

On April 6, 1892^ Mr. Cole was married 
at Bay City, to Hattie Hallam, who was born 
in Norfolk District, Ontario, Canada, where 
her parents were farmers. In 1886 she came 
with a sister to Bay City, where she formed 
the acquaintance of our subject, which resulted 



in this happy marriage. They have one daugh- 



ter. Alma, aged 1 1 years. 



Politically, Mr. Cole is and always has been 
identified with the Republican party. He is 
justly considered one of the township's repre- 
sentative men. 




ICHARD FIELD CONOVER, a 
well-known resident of Bay City, 
Michigan, and the manager of large 
landed family interests, was born in 
South Amboy, New Jersey, and is a representa- 
ti\-e of one of the old established families of that 
section. He is a son of Francis Stevens Cono- 
ver, a captain in the United States Navy, and 
of Helen Field, the daughter of Hon. Richard 
Stockton Field, judge of the LTnited States 
District Court of New Jersey, and a grandson 
of Richard Stockton, one of the signers of the 
Declaration of Independence. 

After graduating at Princeton College, he 
entered the Columbia Law School, and after 
graduation settled for a short time in the prac- 
tice of the law at Newark, New Jersey. He 
then went to Texas and spent 15 years in 
ranching in that State. While in Texas he was 
married to Cornelia Fitzhugh, who is a daugh- 
ter of the late William D. Fitzhugh and a 
granddaughter of Dr. Daniel Hughes Fitz- 
hugh and Judge Charles Carroll. These names 
are very familiar ones to the citizens of Bay 
County, Michigan. 

In 1900 Mr. Conover came to Bay City 
to assume the management of real estate be- 
longing to his wife and her mother, Mrs. Wil- 
liam D. Fitzhugh. It includes property all 
over Bay County, Mr. Fitzhugh's posessions 
at one time probably excelling those of any 
other landowner in this section. 

Mr. and Mrs. Conover enjoy one of the 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



397 



most charming homes of Bay City and it is 
frequently the scene of deHghtful social func- 
tions. They have three children : Carroll Fitz- 
hugh, Helen Field and Alida Van Rensselaer. 
Mr. and Mrs. Conover are meml^ers of Trin- 
ity Protestant Church. 




OBBINS B. TAYLOR, a prominent 
attorney-at-law at Bay City, Michi- 
gan, a -well-known and highly re- 
garded citizen, was born ISIay 15, 
1839, at Plattsburgh, New York, and is a son 
of Rev. Stephen and Electa (Newcomb) 
Taylor. 

Rev. Stephen Taylor was a minister in the 
Baptist Church. When our subject was a child 
' of four years the father removed from New 
York to Ashtabula County, Ohio, and pur- 
chased a farm where his seven children were 
reared. The three survivors are our subject, 
a daughter in California and a son in Colorado. 
The parents have long since passed away. The 
mother came of excellent family, being a 
daughter of Judge Newcomb, of Plattsburgh, 
New York. 

Robbins B. Taylor was reared on the Ohio 
farm and was educated in the district schools 
and in a local academy. In 1S66 he came to 
Michigan and in the following year entered 
upon the reading of the law in the office of 
Grier & INfcDonnell, pioneer attorneys, the 
former of whom became, at a later date, judge 
of the Circuit Court. In 1868, Mr. Taylor was 
graduated from the law department of the 
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and was 
admitted to the bar. He entered into practice 
at Bay City and also soon became interested 
in loans and real estate. At present his atten- 
tion is entirely given, outside of an office prac- 



tice, to the latter interests. Mr. Taylor's office 
is conveniently located at the corner of Third 
and Washington streets. Bay City. During 
his years of greatest professional activity he 
has been alone. At one time he was in part- 
nership with H. H. Wheeler, who was subse- 
quently twice elected to the State Senate. Mr. 
Taylor was a member of the first Board of Pub- 
lic Works of Bay City and served four years 
as its chairman. He was an early appointee on 
the School Board and later served two terms 
by election. He has always been one of the 
city's wide-awake, progressive citizens and he 
has done his full share in promoting her pros- 
perity. 

In 1868, Mr. Taylor was married to Angie 
L. Fling, who was born at Saranac, New York. 
They have one son, Clayton R., who was born 
at Bay City, in 1870. Fie was educated at 
home by private tutors until prepared for col- 
lege and then went to Akron, Ohio, going from 
there to the Northwestern University, at Chi- 
cago, where he was graduated in law. He is 
now junior member of the well-known law 
firm of West, Eckhart & Taylor, which is 
located in the First National Bank Building, 
Chicago. In that great city of competition and 
opportunity, Clayton R. Taylor has met with 
gratifying success. In 1898 he married Alice 
Hatch, who was formerly a teacher in the Bay 
City High School and is the accomplished 
daughter of Judge Hatch, of Detroit, ^Michi- 
gan. They have had two children, the survi- 
vor being a little maid named Helen Louise, 
who is dearly beloved by her grandfather, the 
subject of this sketch. 

Mr. and Mrs. Robbins B. Taylor have also 
in their kindness of heart, reared and thor- 
oughly educated two children, both of whom 
are happily married and well established in 
life. 



398 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 




OBERT L. KING, attorney-at-law 
and justice of the peace at Bay City, 
]\[ichigan, is a native of this city, 
born here in 1871, and is a son of 
Alfred M. and Frances (Thompson) King. 

Alfred M. King has been a resident of Bay 
City since 1868. For several years he taught 
school and then entered upon the practice of 
the law, a profession which has claimed his 
main attention ever since. He has served as 
a justice of the peace and also has been circuit 
court commissioner. Mr. and Mrs. King still 
reside at Bay City, their family consisting of 
four sons and one daughter. 

Robert L. King was reared at Bay City. 
After completing the common-school course 
here, he entered the shop of John D. MacKin- 
non, where he learned the machinist's trade, 
one which he followed until 1895. In the 
meantinie he completed his law reading and 
was admitted to the bar in 1897 ; he has devoted 
the greater part of his attention to this profes- 
sion since that date and has met with very 
satisfactory success. Politically he has always 
been an active Democrat and has been honored 
by his party on many occasions. Fie was 
elected circuit court commissioner and served 
in 1898 and 1899, — a term of two years. In 
1 90 1 he was elected justice of the peace and 
will serve for four years, having the distinction 
of being one of the two magistrates in the city. 

Mr. King married Grace Leonard, who 
was a daughter of John E. Leonard, a substan- 
tial citizen of Bay City. Mrs. King died in 
June, 1902, leaving one son, Robert F., Jr. 
Mr. King is a member of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church. Fraternally, he is a Royal Arch 
Mason, and at present is master of Portsmouth 
Lodge, No. 190, F. & A. M. He belongs also 
to the Knights of the Maccabees and the Mod- 
ern Woodmen of America. He is regarded as 
one of the progressi^■e, enterprising young pro- 



fessional men of the city, well-equipped for 
the future and possessing the qualifications for 
advancement in professional and political fields. 




E. CORLISS, one of the liest-known 
citizens of Bay City, Michigan, who 
was identified with the city press 
for many years and now is city 
treasurer, was born March 11, 1859, at Al- 
bany, New York, and is a son of R. B. and 
Catherine W. (Ward) Corliss. 

The parents of Mr. Corliss resided at Al- 
bany for many years, the father following the 
trade of painter there during all his active life, 
and his death taking place there in 1874. His 
widow removed to Bay City, Michigan, where 
she died in 1890, aged 74 years. Our subject 
has two sisters, viz: Mrs. F. L. Wands and 
Mrs. W. W. Bassett, both of Bay City. 

E. E. Corliss was reared at Alliany and 
completed his education in the Boys' Academy 
of that city. He has been a resident of Bay 
City for more than a quarter of a century and 
has been a prominent figure during the greater 
part of this time. For many years previously 
and up to 1899, he had charge of the circula- 
tion department of the Bay City Times and 
Tribune and gained a wide acquaintance and 
hosts of friends in his newspaper connection. 
His political association has always been with 
the Republican party and he has been one of 
its most efficient workers. He served one term 
as supervisor of the nth District, and in 1899 
was elected deputy city treasurer, serving in 
that oflfice continuously until April, 1903, when 
he was elected to his present office of city treas- 
urer. His public service has reflected credit 
both upon himself and the city. 

Mr. Corliss married at Albany, New York, 
being united to Anna M. Smith, of that city, 




ROBERT W. ERWIN, B. S., M. D. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



401 



and they have two children, viz : Edna, who 
married George H. Floyd, of the Fletcher 
Hardware Company, of Detroit, and has one 
daughter, — ^Virginia ; and Catherine, who is a 
student in the Bay City High School. The 
.pleasant family residence is situated on North 
Farragut street. 

Mr. Corliss has many agreeahle fraternal 
connections, belonging to the Masonic Blue 
Lodge and Council at Bay City; the Elks, 
Knights of Pythias, Knights of Maccabees and 
the Royal Arcanum. 




OBERT W. ERWIN, B. S., M. D., 
who enjoys the distinction of being 
the third oldest physician in practice 
at Bay City, Michigan, has been iden- 
tified with the interests of this city for the past 
30 years. Dr. Erwin was born at Laceyville, 
Harrison County, Ohio, May 24, 1842, and is 
a son of Robert and Rebecca (Law) Erwin. 

Dr. Erwin is descended on the paternal 
side from Scotch Presbyterian ancestors, who 
came to America prior to the Revolutionary 
War. His mother was born in Ireland of Eng- 
lish ancestry. The family is well represented 
in clerical life, both in the Church of England 
and among the followers of John Wesley. 

The enforced industry of life on a farm 
gave our subject energetic habits and to this 
exercise Dr. Erwin attributes much of his sus- 
tained vigor, and long continued capacity for 
hard work. His education was pursued 
through the winters at the district schools, but 
the summers found him hard at work on his 
father's farm. When Init 17 years old, after 
five months in a neighboring academy, and 
three months in the Hopedale (Ohio) Normal 
School, he was accepted as a teacher in the local 
■school. He continued to teach through the 



winters until after the outbreak of the Civil 
War, when he enlisted for service in the 170th 
Regiment, Ohio Vol. Inf., in which he served 
until the expiration of his term of enlistment. 

After his honorable discharge, he returned 
to his studies, entering the Ohio University, 
at Athens, where he took the full course and 
was graduated in the class of 1868, with the 
degree of B. S. For some time he had been 
reading medicine with the intention of adopt- 
ing it as a profession, and, after leaving the 
University, immediately entered Bellevue Hos- 
pital Medical College, New York City, where he 
was graduated in the class of 1870. In order 
to satisfactorily pursue his medical studies dur- 
ing this time, he filled the chair of geometry at 
Cooper Institute. 

Dr. Erwin settled for practice at Athens, 
Ohio, where he continued for three years. In 
1873 he came Westward, seeking a wider field 
and chose Bay City for his permanent location. 
Here Dr. Erwin met with great encouragement 
from the start and soon built up a lucrative 
practice. His life has been devoted to his pro- 
fession and the eminence to which he has at- 
tained is the just reward of faithful effort. He 
has taken ach'antage of special courses and has 
attended noted clinics, continually supplement- 
ing his previous knowledge with all that could 
be secured in the leading medical organizations 
of the country. He is a member of the Michi- 
gan State Medical Society, American Academy 
of Medicine, American Medical Association 
and an honorary member of the Ohio State 
Meidical Society and is also affiliated with the 
medical bodies of Bay County and the Saginaw 
Valley. He has been zealous in his efforts to 
uphold the honor of the profession and raise 
the standard of its requirements. 

Dr. Erwin was married on April 19, 1870, 
to Julia E. Carpenter, a daughter of Dr. E. G. 
Carpenter, of Athens, Ohio. ^Irs. Erwin died 



402 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



January lo, 1902. Two daughters were born 
to them, namely: Mrs. Edwin C. Horn, of 
Washington, Pennsylvania ; and Roberta Julia, 
who lives with her father and presides over his 
home. The family residence is a beautiful 
modern one, situated on the corner of Sixth 
and Monroe streets; the Doctor still retains 
his office in the old place, on the corner of Fifth 
and Adams streets. He is a member and a 
trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of 
which Mrs. Erwin was a member in her life- 
time. 

Dr. Erwin has never taken any very active 
part in politics, giving all his attention to medi- 
cal matters. He served as a member of the 
Board of Health for seven years — part of three 
terms. He still practices, but chiefly at his 
office. Personally, he is held in the highest 
esteem throughout Bay County. His portrait 
accompanies this sketch. 



If H^l 
1 « V 



ALTER AIERRITT, whose excel- 
lent farm of 80 acres is situated in 
section 1 1 , Portsmouth township, 
Bay County, Michigan, was born 
on this farm June 10, 1864, and is a son of 
Nelson and Sarah Jane (Crowe) Merritt. 

The Merritt family for several generations 
were domiciled in the Dominion of Canada, 
where John and Sarah (Taylor) Merritt, our 
subject's grandparents, were born. Although 
Nelson was their only son, they also had six 
daughters. Nelson Alerritt was born July 27, 
1827, in Prince Edward District, Ontario, Can- 
ada, and grew up on his father's farm and 
worked in the sawmills in the lumber region 
until 30 years of age. Attracted by the stories 
of the Australian gold mines, he then shipped 
for that far-off land, sailing from New York. 
by way of Cape Horn, and safely reaching 



Sydney. He remained three years in Austra- 
lia and then returned to Canada wdiere he mar- 
ried. In 1858, shortly after his marriage, he 
came to Michigan. He bought 320 acres of 
heavily timbered land in Bay County, to which 
he later added 80 acres more, and remained on 
this farm, quiet and contented after his former 
life of adventure, until his death, which oc- 
curred on February 3, 1893. Mr. Merritt was 
a good manager and a very industrious man. 
His land w-as all cleared and placed under cul- 
tivation by his own work, and in the meantime 
he built a comfortable home and substantial 
buildings of all kinds necessary for the carry- 
ing on of extensive farming and stock-raising. 
He was a man of great intelligence and kept 
abreast of the times in his knowledge of cur- 
rent affairs and his sterling character made him 
the natural selection of his neighbors for vari- 
ous local offices. He served as justice of the 
peace, as township treasurer and as health offi- 
cer. Politically he was a Republican. In his 
later years he united with the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. He was a man who exerted 
a wide influence for good in his locality and 
was one of the most active supporters of pviblic 
improvements. The mother of our subject was 
born in Prince Edward District, Ontario, on 
October 19, 1841, and is a daughter of John 
and Hannah (Loose) Crowe, who were na- 
tives of England, but who died in Canada. 
Mrs. Merritt li\-es with her son Walter on the' 
homestead. A family of six children were 
born to our suljject's parents: William N., of 
Portsmouth township; Sarah E. (widow of 
Bert Walker), who resides with our subject 
on the homestead; James H., deceased at the 
age of two years ; Walter, of this sketch ; Alice, 
deceased at the age of four years; and Grace, 
who is the wife of Fred Whipple, of Ports- 
mouth township. 

Walter ]Merritt was educated in the com- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



403- 



nioii schools of his township, and has devoted 
his whole life to farming on the So-acre tract 
of the homestead that he owns. He has made 
many imjjrovements and has a very productive 
and valuable property. 

In 1892, Mr. Merritt was married to ISIary 
J. Potter, who was born October 3, 1865, in 
Tuscola County, Michigan, and is a daughter 
of Robert and Mary J. Potter. They have 
three children : Raymond N., Robert G. and 
]\Iyrtle S. :\Ir. Merritt, like his father, has 
always been identiiied with the Republican 
party, but he has never consented to hold office, 
giving his whole attention to his farm and 
family. He is an attendant on the services of 
the ^[ethodist Episcopal Church, to which he 
gives liberal support. 




ON. GRIFFITH H. FRANCIS, a 
sa B- »j a jurist of high standing in Bay City, 
g^J Michigan, is judge of the Probate 
Court of Bay County. He was born 
September 25, 1844, in South Trenton, Oneida 
County, New York, and is a son of Rowland 
and Ruth (Jones) Francis, natives of Wales, 
who severally came to the United States when 
of mature age, and were united in marriage in 
New York State. Rowland Francis was a 
farmer by occupation. 

The parents of the subject of this sketch 
liad eight children, of whom he was the eldest. 
Of the seven sons and one daugliter resulting 
from their union, all are living except one son, 
who died in infancy. Their ages range from 
48 to 60 years. 

Griffith H. Francis received his early men- 
tal training in the district school, which he at- 
tended three months each winter. Although 
he left home at the age of 11 years, and was 
engaged in various occupations, he w-as ambi- 



tious to learn and never neglected an oppor- 
tunity to improve his mind. The first graded 
school which he attended wasat Morrisonville, 
New York, after he was 19 years old. He at- 
tended Cazenovia Seminary about two years 
and in 1867 went to Ripon, Wisconsin, and 
entered Ripon College. After four years at 
Ripon, during which time he also engaged in 
teaching, being principal of one of the schools 
there, he returned to Cazenovia and took up 
the course wdiere he had left off and graduated 
in 1872. Shortly after his graduation from 
Cazenovia, he came to Michigan and entered 
the law department of the University of Mich- 
igan at Ann Arbor, from w-hich he graduated 
in 1874. Following his graduation, he spent 
some time in teaching graded schools. On 
relinquishing this work, he began the practice 
of the law at Saline, Michigan. 

In 1876, Judge Francis came to Bay 
County, taking up his residence in West Bay 
City, where he still makes his home. A year 
after his arrival, he was elected justice of the 
peace. He also served on the School Board 
and held other offices of minor note. He was- 
one of the attorneys wdio drafted the charter 
of West Bay City in 1877. For seven years- 
he was city attorney of West Bay City. In 
1882 he transferred his office to Bay City, 
where he continued in active practice. For one 
term he served as county commissioner of 
schools, and also completed an unexpired term 
as Circuit Court commissioner. 

The subject of this sketch w'as elected judge 
of the Probate Court in 1900, and assumed the 
duties of that office in 1901. He was re-elected 
in the fall of 1904 by a very large majority, — 
showing the people's appreciation of the man- 
ner in which his office w'as conducted. He is 
a stanch Republican in politics, and has served 
as chairman and secretary of the Republican 
County Committee; for several years he 



404 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



presided over the city campaign! organiza- 
tion. 

Judge Francis was married in Brighton, 
Michigan. May 23, 1878, to Harriet A. Hyne, 
a daughter of Karl T. Hyne. a native of Ger- 
many. Four children were born to this union, 
namely : Luella, a graduate of the West Bay 
City High School, who is at home; Mabel, a 
graduate of the same institution ; Helen, w"ho 
graduated at the Bay City High School, and is 
now a student at Alma College ; and Karl Row- 
land, who is named after both of his grand- 
fathers. 

Judge Francis is a member of the ]\Iasonic 
order, and of the Foresters and Maccabees. In 
the Royal Arcanum he has served as grand 
regent, and is now past grand of the State 
organization. 




OHX G. ARNOLD is a well-known 
baker of Bay City, Michigan, where 
he was born in 1862. He is a son of 
Fred and Louise (]\Iiller) Arnold. 
His father was born in Bavaria, Germany, in 
November, 1832. His mother was also a na- 
tive of Germany, and was a schoolmate of her 
husband. 

Fred Arnold crossed the ocean in 1854 in 
the vessel "Whitney," and came to Bay City 
in July of that year. For the first two years 
he worked in the old McEwan mill. In those 
early days no fresh meat was to be obtained. 
Pork and beans were the most common articles 
of food. Beer there was none. Whiskey was 
sold at a shilling per gallon. The first beer 
seen by Mr. Arnold was like thick milk. In 
1856, in an old blacksmith shop on Water 
street, then the main street of the city, Mr. 
Arnold opened a bakery, on the site of the 
present Watson Block. It was known as the 
"Old Bakerv." There he remained for two 



years, dealing mostly with the Indians. In 
1857 he purchased from James Fraser for 
$300 the site of the present Arnold bakery, 
then occupied by a frame structure. The build- 
ing was twice burned, and its owner has passed 
through three fires. In the present substantial 
brick block, on Fifth and Saginaw streets, he 
conducted a first-class bakery, which is now 
operated by his son John G. 

Fred Arnold rememliers making trips to 
Saginaw to buy flour. There he purchased 
for $8.00 per barrel the same grade of 
flour sold by Putnam, in Bay City, for 
$17.00. He turned his well-established bak- 
ery over to his sons, Godfrey and John G., 
about 1874, and retired from active busi- 
ness, to look after his property interests, being 
well-provided with this world's goods. During 
his long residence here, he has made several 
trips to his nati\-e land, for pleasure and recrea- 
tion. He crossed the Atlantic in 1857. 18S2 
and 1890, being accompanied on the last trip 
by his wife. In all, he has made eight vo}-ages 
to Europe, besides visiting scenes of local in- 
terest. 

Fred Arnold was married to Louise Miller 
in Bay City and their union resulted in eight 
children, as follows : Godfrey, who married 
Setchen Fichtel, and lives at Calumet, Hough- 
ton County, Michigan ; Fred, Jr., a Lutheran 
minister, who married Carrie Peterman, and 
resides at Silver Creek, New York ; John G. ; 
Sophia, wife of H. Tresselt, who operates a 
flour mill at Fort \\' ayne, Indiana : Louise, wife 
of Al. Schiermer, who is in the jewelry busi- 
ness at Saginaw; Tillie, deceased, who was 
the wife of F. Burton: Clara, wife of Theo- 
dore Seymeyer, wholesale dealer in boots and 
shoes at Fort Wayne, Indiana; and JNIartha, 
wife of George \\'atrous, who is employed in 
the Commercial Bank in Bay City. 

The father of this family helped to organize 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



405. 



the olil Lutheran Clnirch and scliool at Lin- 
cohi and McKinley avenues, of wliicli he was 
trustee for a number of years. 

The subject of this sketch received his men- 
tal training in the Bay City pubhc schools. 
At the age of 15 years he began to learn the 
bakery business with his father, and has been 
connected with it in various ways ever since. 
When iiis father retired aljiiut 1874. the firm 
became Arnold Brothers. They dissolved part- 
nership in 1880, from which period Mr. Ar- 
nold has conducted the concern alone. He is 
an energetic, up-to-date business man, and is 
thoroughly posted in his trade. 

Mr. Arnold was married in 1901 to Minnie 
Hoffman, who was born in Bay City. Their 
union has resulted in two sons, — Frederick 
and Henry. 

Mr. Arnold is a member of the Mutual 
Building & Loan Association and of the Royal 
Guards. He and his wife are memliers of the 
Lutheran Church. 




oris VAXDERBILT, who for the 
past 24 years has resided on his farm 
of 120 acres, situated in section 36, 
township 14, range 5, in Portsmouth 
township, Bay County, Michigan, was lx)rn 
November 7, 1834, in the province of Antwerp, 
Belgium, and is a son of Frank and Catherine 
( Moerdenoiid ) \'anderbilt. 

The parents of Mr. Vanderbilt spent their 
lives in Belgium, where they were most worthy 
farming people of the middle class. They 
reared a family of nine children. Three daugh- 
ters and two sons came to America. The only 
survivors of the family are our subject and his 
sister, Mrs. Marie Antoinette Johnson, who 
resides with him. 

Mr. Vanderbilt has had a very interesting 



life, filled with adventure and hard work, and 
through his own efforts has brought about the 
peace, plenty and comfort which he is able to 
enjoy as the evening of life draws on. He 
was reared on his good father's farm until he 
was chosen as trainer of the horses for the use 
of the royal family of Belgium, and he served 
in this position for two years, frequently meet- 
ing some of his royal patrons. He then entered 
the army, according to the law, and served five 
years in the artillery. This service brought him 
little capital and by the time it had closed, it 
was late to learn a trade. Conditions did not 
seem to offer him any inducement to remain 
in his native land, so that, as soon as he could 
make his arrangements, he sailed for America 
and landed finally at Detroit. 

Mr. Vanderbilt found himself hampered 
by his want of knowledge of the English lan- 
guage. Belgian, German and French he could 
easily speak, but the English language, as he 
had never mingled with English-speaking peo- 
ple, was very difiicult to learn. After seeking 
an opening at Detroit for several months, he 
came to Bay City where he had learned that 
work was plentiful. Here he found his good 
manners and excellent clothing were against 
him in applying for a laborer's position, but he 
finally secured work at ditching and thereby 
earned his first $40 in .\merica. Some months 
later he went into a lumber camp in the woods 
and there he found plenty of work and good 
wages and attracted to him any number of 
good friends among the hard-working crews, 
many of whom, like himself, had come from 
other lands. Mr. Vanderbilt followed raf ting- 
on the river, and was paid well for his danger- 
ous work as a lumber jack, and thus obtained 
the capital which enabled him to retire from 
that Inisiness. He began work at $12 a month, 
and when he quit he was getting $150 a month 
from the firm of Dexter & Bellow. 



4o6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



After lo years of this hard work, Mr. Van- 
derbilt came to Bay City and built a hotel, the 
Vanderbilt House, which he operated three 
years and then built a second house which he 
•conducted for eight years. This second hotel 
he traded for his present farm of 120 acres, 
■only 30 of which had been cleared. All the 
subsequent clearing he did himself and made 
all the excellent improvements. He has con- 
ducted his farm mainly as a dairy farm and 
lias met with excellent results. 

In 1864, ]\Ir. Vanderbilt was married to 
Theresa Schmidt, who was born in Belgium 
and died in 1877 at Bay City, survived by five 
children : Joseph, proprietor of the Center 
Road Hotel, of Hampton ; Frank, also a hotel- 
keeper; Louis, who lives with his father; 
Charles, proprietor of the Savoy Hotel, of Bay 
City; and Felix, of Idaho. Mr. Vanderbilt 
married, as his second wife, Sophia Wentz, 
who was born in Belgium and died in 1881, 
leaving one child, — Felix. 

]\Ir. Vanderbilt takes an interest in local 
politics but votes independently, supporting the 
man he thinks will best execute the laws and 
carry out the will of the people. 




ULIUS SCHULZ, florist, with green- 
houses at Xo. 19 19 Columbus avenue. 
Bay City, Michigan, is one of the suc- 
cessful business men of this city. He 
was born in Pommern, Germany, May 31, 
1S58. and is a son of Charles and Carolina 
^^'ilhelmina Schulz. 

The father of our subject was a florist in 
Germany and later became a gamekeeper on a 
large estate. He immigrated to America some 
years after his son and joined him at Bay City. 
For five years he had charge of Eickemeyer's 
cemetery. His death took place Januar}^ 4, 
1904; his wife had died in 1893. 



Julius Schulz learned the florist's trade in 
Germany, serving an apprenticeship of two 
years in Berlin. In 1881 he came to America 
and located at ^Milwaukee, \\'isconsin, where 
he followed market gardening until 1883, when 
he came to Bay City. For a time he was in 
the employ of the John C. Irvine Greenhouse 
Company of Bay City, but in 1889 he opened 
up his own place of business on Columbus 
avenue. He began with two small green- 
houses 25 by 50 feet in dimensions, but these 
were accidentally burned in 1891 and the loss 
was total, as he had no insurance. ]\Ir. Schulz 
was in no way discouraged by this calamity, 
although it absorbed all his capital. He went 
right to work and before the close of the year 
was again ready for business in more conven- 
iently constructed quarters. In 1S92 he made 
many improvements and now has five modern 
built greenhouses, with steam heat and all ap- 
pliances for the growing and preserving of 
everything in his line, including a cold stor- 
age plant. Mr. Schulz has indeed made the 
desert blossom, for when he came to his present 
location nothing could be seen but the native 
woods. It is very wonderful to mark the 
changes brought about in so short a time and 
they tell, better than words, of the energy and 
enterprise of ^Ir. Schulz. He has many busi- 
ness and personal friends who rejoice to see 
his prosperity, knowing, as they do, the honest 
industry which has brought it about. 

At Bay City, in 1886, Mr. Schulz was mar- 
ried to Augusta Kanath, -who was born in West 
Prussia, Germany, and they have a family of 
five children, all of whom are at home, namely : 
Emil, who is his father's capable and intelli- 
gent assistant; Walter, Minnie, Arthur and 
Laura. The family belong to the German 
Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel Church on 
Lincoln avenue and lOlh street, with which 
^Ir. Schulz united in 1883 and to which he 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



407 



has contributed liberally. He assisted in the 
building- of the church edifice. 

Mr. Schulz has never identified himself 
with any political party, seeking rather the elec- 
tion of men of good reputation, who can be 
trusted to enforce the laws. He has been in a 
marked degree public-spirited and assisted ma- 
terially in the construction of the street rail- 
way and other impro\-ements on Columbus 
a\enue, .\lthough he came to America a man 
grown, without any knowledge of the English 
language, he set himself the task of learning it 
and succeeded without having had a single les- 
son. This is but an example of the persevering 
patience and firm determination that have also 
been brought to bear in the building up of his 
business. 




A. COLLINS, one of the prominent 
and representative men of Bay 
City, Michigan, a leading member 
of the Bay County bar and a pub- 
lic official now serving his second term as Cir- 
cuit Court commissioner, was born in Sagi- 
naw County, Michigan, February 19, 1879. He 
is a son of John J. and Mary (Scott) Collins, 
pioneers of Bay County, 

Capt, John Collins, the paternal grand- 
father, who, with his wife, still resides in Bay 
City, was born in Liverpool, England. He 
came to Bay City in 1851 and spent the whole 
of his active life as a sailor, commanding ves- 
sels on the Great Lakes for many years. Our 
subject's father has also been a sailor for many 
years, having but lately retired from maritime 
life. He is well and favorably known all over 
Bay County and now resides at Chicago, aged 
about 50 years. The mother of our subject died 
in 1898, aged 42 years. She was of Dutch de- 
scent, her family coming originally from Hol- 
land, to which countrv the old aristocracv of 



the State of New York refers with pardonable 
pride. The family consisted of four children, 
viz: W. A., Helen, John J., Jr., and Walter 
Scott. All were born in Bay City, Michigan, 
and all, with the exception of our subject, re- 
side in New York. 

Our subject was four years of age when his 
parents settled at Bay City, and his education 
was obtained in the common and high schools 
of his native place. After graduating from the 
High School in 1896, he began to teach school, 
a profession he followed in various parts of the 
county for some six years, during this time 
studying law to such good purpose that in 1901 
he was admitted to the bar and entered upon 
the practice of the profession. Although he 
has been eminently successful, he is better 
known to the people of Bay County as a politi- 
cal factor. A stanch Republican and fine ora- 
tor, he has taken a very active part in political 
campaigning for the past six years. In 1899 
he was appointed a member of the Bay County 
Board of School Examiners for a term of two 
years and was reappointed in 1901. In 1902 
he was elected Circuit Court commissioner and 
in 1904 was reelected and is serving in this 
position at present. 

In 1898 ]\Ir. Collins was united in marriage 
with Louise Abeare, who is a daughter of 
Julius Abeare, now of Bay County. Mrs. Col- 
lins was born at Marine City, St. Clair County, 
Michigan. They have two sons, bright, inter- 
esting children : Earl Chester, a manly little 
fellow of five years; and Y'lrgW Leo, aged one 
year. 

Mr, Collins is clerk and corporal of Com- 
pany B, 3rd Infantry, Michigan National 
Guard. He belongs to a number of fraternal 
and social organizations, including the Knights 
of Pythias, Modern Woodmen of America, In- 
dependent Order of Foresters, Union Life 
Guards, National League of Veterans and 



4o8 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Sons, and Modern Archers of America. In 
his religious views Mr. Collins favors the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church. 

Mr. Collins has forged his own way to the 
front rank of an unusually gifted body of 
young professional men and political workers, 
and he has won for himself a position of envia- 
ble prominence and future promise. 




ON. JAMES BIRNEY. This distin- 
guished son of a distinguished father 
became identified with the Saginaw 
Valley in 1856, coming as the succes- 
sor of his father, who had made large invest- 
ments here in Lower Saginaw (now Bay City). 
A graduate of the Ohio University at 
Miami, in 1836. James Birney became a mem- 
ber of the faculty, teaching Greek and Latin, 
prior to attending the law lectures of Judge 
Storm and of Professor Hitchcock, of Yale 
College, at New Haven, Connecticut. While 
in New Haven he married Amanda Moulton, 
a stepdaughter of Nathaniel Bacon of that city. 
After his graduation he practiced law at Cin- 
cinnati until business interests led him to make 
a visit to Lower Saginaw as above mentioned. 
In the summer of 1857 he removed his family 
to Bay County and from that time on became 
closely identified with the interests of this sec- 
tion of Michigan. 

Judge Birney purchased his father's large 
interests in the town of Lower Saginaw and 
also made several independent purchases from 
the government. His first important public 
service here was to procure the passage of the 
bill changing the name of Lower Saginaw to 
Bay City. In 1858 he was elected to the State 
Senate on the Republican ticket, being nomi- 
nated more as a compliment than otherwise. 
The district extended to the Straits of Mack- 



inac and all that portion of Saginaw County 
embraced within the present limits of Bay 
County, had been regarded as strongly Demo- 
cratic. Judge Birney received in this strong- 
hold of Democracy every vote in the county 
except five, which were given the regular Dem- 
ocratic nominee, and a few scattering. The 
volume of session laws for 1859 contains some 
50 acts presented by Judge Birney for his dis- 
trict; what is remarkable, every one he pre- 
sented was adopted. 

One of the above measures had an import- 
ant bearing upon the interests and develop- 
ment of the Saginaw Valley and the lOth Dis- 
trict. This was the act securing a bounty for 
the manufacture of salt. The bill proposed the 
payment of five cents a bushel, but Judge Bir- 
ney presented it in such a way that it was con- 
sidered in a more favorable light and a bounty 
of 10 cents was granted. 

In i860. Judge Birney was nominated by 
the Republican State Convention for the office 
of Lieutenant-Governor and was elected by a 
majority of 20.000. It was during his term in 
this office that he was appointed to a vacancy 
on the circuit bench, and he filled this position 
for the next four years, his jurisdiction em- 
bracing Saginaw, Gratiot, Isabella, Midland, 
Iosco and Bay counties. After the expiration 
of his term, he was unanimously renominated 
by the Republican Judicial Convention, but the 
district had become so largely Democratic that 
he was defeated. He then resumed the prac- 
tice of the law and took part in nearly all the 
important litigation of that time. In 1871 he 
established the Bay City Chronicle, which was 
issued as a daily in 1873 and its publication was 
continued until after his departure for The 
Hague, in 1876, when it was merged into the 
Bay City Tribune. 

In 1872, Governor Baldwin nominated 
Judge Birney to President Grant as centennial 




REV. H. J. H. SCHUTJES 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



411 



commissisoner for Michigan, to celebrate the 
looth anniversary of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence in 1876. He failed to serve in this 
capacity as he had been appointed by the Pres- 
ident, on December 17, 1875, ^^ United States 
jMinister to the Netherlands and he departed 
for The Hague in 1876. This honor was 
greeted with satisfaction by his fellow-citizens 
who appreciated how valuable his services had 
been to Michigan. He did much for his local- 
ity and State, one act being the securing of the 
first railroad in Bay City. 

Judge Birney had five children : James G., 
Arthur Moulton, Sophia Hull (Blackwell), 
Alice (Mrs. Frank Blackwell) and one child 
that died in infancy. 




ISS MARGARET L. McGUIRE, 
a well-known and much respected 
lady of Bay City, Michigan, is a 
native of Canada, born at Leeds in 
the Province of Quebec. Her father, Michael 
AIcGuire, died when she was 1 1 years old ; she 
had previously, at the age of four, lost her 
mother. 

In 1856, Miss McGuire entered the service 
of Rev. H. J. H. Schutjes, whose pastorate at 
that time covered the entire Saginaw Valley. 
She was an orphan when Father Schutjes took 
her into his household, and she continued in 
the capacity of his housekeeper for 41 years, 
faithful to every obligation imposed by that 
relationship. When she first came to what is 
now Bay City, the spot was thickly covered 
with timber, and what is now Center street 
was a mass of dense brush. She has seen the 
Catholic Church in the Saginaw Valley grow 
from its infancy. During her long period of 
service with Father Schutjes, he was always 
kind and considerate, and when he crossed the 

23 



ocean to Europe after spending seven vears as 
secretary to the Bishop of Detroit, subsequent 
to his departure from Bay City, she accompa- 
nied him. A few words concerning this most 
worthy clerg}'man would seem not irrelevent 
in this connection. 

Rev. H. J. H. Schutjes, whose portrait 
accompanies this sketch, was a Hollander, born 
March 6, 1826, and died in Holland, March 
18, 1897, at the age of 71 years. He was the 
youngest of a family of seven sons, one of 
whom was a priest in Holland. The five other 
sons occupied positions of public trust in Eu- 
rope. He received a good education, complet- 
ing his studies at Louvain University, Belgium, 
and was conversant with the German, Dutch, 
Belgian, French, Latin and English languages. 
He came to Michigan with 25 other young 
priests, and had but 25 cents in his pockets 
upon his arrival. He was ordained to the 
priesthood under Bishop LeFevre of Detroit, 
^Michigan, and then began his connection with 
the development of the Catholic Church in this 
section. His income at the outset was very 
meagre, and all the meat used in his 
household in those pioneer days was of 
his own killing. During 1850 and 1851 
the Catholics of Lower Saginaw (now 
Bay City) built of native timber, which 
they procured from the woods, an edifice 
on Washington street below Second, known as 
St. Joseph's Church, and Father Schutjes ar- 
rived in 1852 to assume charge. He had great 
difficulties with which to contend, as the church 
was not only in its infancy, but no place was 
provided for the pastoral residence. He chiefly 
resided at the old Wolverton House, and the 
remainder of the time was the guest of some 
friend. Included in his charge was all of the 
Saginaw Valley, and this necessitated frequent 
trips, which were hazardous and full of hard- 
ships, as there were no roads at that time. He 



412 



HISTORY OF BAY COUXTY 



was relieved of a part of his charge in 1863. 
when pastors were secured for Saginaw and 
East Saginaw. His parishioners inchided Hol- 
landers, Germans, French and those speaking 
English, which made it necessary for him to 
speak several languages. A new church was 
erected in 1868 on the site of the present St. 
James' Church by the English-speaking por- 
tion of the parish and was dedicated under the 
patronage of St. James the Apostle. In 1873. 
Father Schutjes was called to Detroit to assist 
the Bishop, and Rev. Thomas Rafter, the pres- 
ent incumbent, became his successor. During 
Father Schutjes' pastorate, the church had a 
wonderful growth in memlaership and influ- 
ence, and in the power to accomplish beneficent 
and charitable acts. The St. James" Parochial 
School was begun by him and completed by 
Father Rafter, and was then taken charge of 
by the Sisters of Charity, from Cincinnati, in 
September, 1873. 

Upon the death of Father Schutjes, Miss 
McGuire returned to Bay City to make her 
home with her brother-in-law, Henry Peters, a 
widower, for whom she kept house until his 
death in 1901. She now resides in this old 
home at No. 915 Columbia a\-enue, and also 
owns other property in Bay City. 




ILLIAM H. FRIDAY, a prosperous 
farmer of Gibson township, Bay 
County, ^Michigan, resides in sec- 
tion 28 and has a fine farm of 80 
acres. He was born in Oakland County, Mich- 
igan, in 1875. and is a son of Isaac and Julia 
(Baldwin) Friday. His grandfather Friday 
lived to reach the age of 96 years and was a 
life-long resident of New York State. 

Isaac Friday was born at Albany, New 
York, and was a pioneer of Oakland County, 



Michigan, where he located at an early date. 
He was married there to Julia Baldwin, who 
also was born in Albany, New York, and died 
in 1893, aged 59 years. ]Mr. Friday died one 
year later at the age of yi years. 

William H. Friday received his educational 
training at Clarkson, ^Michigan, and worked 
on his father's farm of 113 acres in Springfield 
township, Oakland County. His first business 
venture on his own account was in 1896, when 
he purchased his present farm of 80 acres in 
section 28, Gibson township, Bay County. It 
was all wild land at the time and a considerable 
distance from any road, and in building his 
house it was necessary to carry the lumber on 
his back. Before the doors were hung or the 
windows in, he moved into the house with his 
wife, and there followed the same difficulties 
and hardships in this undeveloped community 
as were experienced in early pioneer days in 
what are now thickly settled sections of the 
county. He has cleared the land and placed 
it in a high state of cultivation, and nmv 
has one of the most valuable farms in the 
township. 

In 1893, -^^1'- Friday was married to Lillian 
Richmond, a daughter of Benjamin and Mary 
( Howell) Richmond, and a granddaughter of 
\\"illiam Richmond, a native of New York who 
at an early age settled in Gro\'eland township, 
Oakland County, Michigan, where he died 
at the age of "/Z years. Benjamin Richmond 
was born on the old homestead in Groveland 
township, which continued to be his home up 
to the time of his death at the age of 65 years. 
His wife died in 1878. aged 35 years. 

William H. Friday and his wife are parents 
of three children, as follows : Elmer, born in 
1894; Julia, born in 1896; and Richmond, born 
in 1903. Fraternally our subject is a member 
of the Knights of the ^Maccabees and the 
Grange. He is a stanch Republican in politics. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



413 




\RL KRABBE, one of the prominent 
farmers and stock-raisers of Merritt 
township, Bay County, Michigan, 
who owns a well-inipro\'ed and pro- 
ductive farm of 160 acres in section 31, was 
"born in the city of Stralsund, Pommern, Ger- 
many, September 25, 1859, and is a son of 
Carl and Carohne (Piretz) Krabbe. 

The parents of Mr. Krabbe were farming 
people in Germany and they passed their lives 
in their native land. Of their nine children, 
seven reached maturity, as follows : Axel, who 
lives on the old homestead in Germany ; Emma, 
(Mrs. Lange), of Germany; August, who 
came to Bay County in the spring of 1883 and 
died July 26, 1903; Minnie (Mrs. Ebelt), of 
Germany ; Alvina. who died in Germany ; Carl, 
■of this sketch ; and Otto, of Germany. 

Our subject remained with his parents and 
assisted in working the home farm until 1891, 
when he came to America, reaching Bay City 
on June nth, where he joined his brother Au- 
gust who had been here for eight years. j\Ir. 
Krabbe came with the intention of investing in 
land and soon became satisfied with the appear- 
ance and location of his present property, which 
he purchased. The tract consisted of 160 acres, 
40 of which had been improved. Mr. Krabbe 
has cleared and put the remainder under a fine 
•state of cultivation, has built a comfortable 
home and has made many excellent improve- 
ments. At first he made hay his leading crop, 
then raised grain, but latterly has given more 
attention to the raising of fine stock. His herd 
of Holstein cattle can scarcely be excelled in 
the county. His large supply of milk is sold to 
the cheese factory at Buena Vista. 

Mr. Krabbe was married in Bay County 
in May, 1892, to Ella Janiche, wlio was born 
in Berlin, Germany, June 11, 1874, and is a 
■daughter of Emil and Anna (Smith) Janiche. 
natives of Germany, who came here when Mrs. 



Krabbe was nine years old. Our subject and 
wife have five bright, interesting children: 
Emma, Carl, Axel, Otto and W'ilma. 

Politically, Mr. Krabbe has become identi- 
fied with the Republican party, but he takes 
no active interest in politics, devoting his time 
closely to his agricultural interests. He is a 
member and liberal supporter of the German 
Lutheran Church in ]\Ierritt township. 



ON. JAMES GILLESPIE BIRNEY. 
In recalling this distinguished citizen 
of the United States, whose brilliant 
gifts and solid services to his country 
deserve preservation in every public record, the 
citizens of Bay County, Michigan, remember 
with pride that for over a decade he made his 
home here. 

James Gillespie Birney was born February 
4, 1792, at Danville, Kentucky, an only son of 
James and Anna (Reed) Birney. His descent 
was pure Protestant Scotch-Irish. The pater- 
nal grandfather owned the old family home- 
stead near Cootehill, County Cavan, Ireland, 
and is represented as a man in prosperous cn"- 
cumstances, a vestryman in the Church of Eng- 
land and a local magistrate. His life was closed 
in his own country. On the maternal side, the 
grandfather was John Reed, who was born in 
Londonderry, Ireland, a man of wealth and 
political influence. His connection with some 
of the political movements of the dangerous 
times in which he lived caused him to leave his 
own land and seek a home in America, and as 
early as 1779 he had established himself in 
Kentucky. In the same year he built a fort 
within two miles of Danville and a mansion 
which has stood the assaults of Time until 
within a recent period. From his marriage 
with Lettice Wilcox came some of Kcntuckv's 



414 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



greatest statesmen : Thomas Buchanan Read, 
Judges John and Thomas Green, Rev. Lewis 
W. Green, D. D., Dr. WilHs G. Craig and Gen. 
Humphrey Marshall. 

In spite of the wealth and social standing 
of his father, James Birney, the father of our 
distinguished subject, tired of home surround- 
ings and ancestral customs, and when only i6 
years of age escaped from Ireland and resolved 
to build up his own fortunes in the great coun- 
try across the ocean. He reached Philadelphia 
in 1783. In 1788 he opened a store at Dan- 
ville, Kentucky, in which he prospered and later 
became identified with almost all the channels 
of trade, politics, religion and social life in the 
State and became justly reputed the wealthiest 
as well as one of the most influential men in 
Kentucky. His many interests brought him 
into close contact with the leading men of his 
day and it was in his own home or in com- 
panionship with his grandfather Reed that 
James G. Birney learned the theories of gov- 
ernment, which books could never have taught 
him, and while still a youth had formulated his 
own views. 

Thus the youth grew up unusually intelli- 
gent and possessing the poise of a man before 
he had reached maturity. His character was 
that of a youth frank, self-respecting and self- 
reliant, with that touch of Southern chivalry 
which so marked his generation and which is 
so sadly wanting in the present. After thor- 
ough preparation, James G. Birney entered the 
sophomore class in Princeton College, in April, 
1808. and was graduated September 26, 1810, 
having shown unusual proficiency in moral and 
political philosophy, general literature and the 
classics, in fact, in just those branches which 
he needed in his future career. While there 
he had listened to the teachings of the president 
of the college, the eminent Dr. Stanhope Smith, 
who taught his pupils that slavery was a moral 



wrong and a political evil. The subject was 
one of importance over the whole Union and 
was the subject of much debate and discussion 
at the college. Pennsylvania had already passed 
an emancipation act, which was followed by the 
same legislation in New York in 1801, and in 
New Jersey in 1804. In all the college discus- 
sions James G. Birney took part, never defend- 
ing slavery, although both his father and grand- 
father W'Cre slave-owners and he had been 
brought up in its shadow and under its influ- 
ence. Immediately after securing his diploma, 
he returned to Kentucky, and he subsequently 
entered upon the study of the law with United 
States District Attorney Alexander J. Dallas,. 
in Philadelphia, with whom he continued for 
three years. He passed his examination and 
was admitted to the bar in Philadelphia, and in 
May, 1814, he returned to Danville and entered 
upon the practice of the law-. In the fall elec- 
tions he was made a member of the Town 
Council and was instrumental in founding the 
Danville Academy. In 1816 he was elected a 
member of the Lower House of the Kentucky 
General Assembly, and it was during this- 
period that he first took the stand in opposi- 
tion to slavery, which made his subsequent ca- 
reer so interesting and important. 

Mr. Birney now began to think of a wider 
sphere for his professional and political ambi- 
tions, and circumstances pointed to Alabama 
as a fruitful field and thither he removed in- 
1818. 

From 181 8 to 1823 the biographer finds- 
Mr. Birney practicing his profession, oversee- 
ing an immense plantation and entering with 
vigor into politics. The latter interests brought 
about financial losses of a serious character. 
His frequent absences from home had caused 
the unprofitable cultivation of his crops, mainly 
his cotton, and in 1823, in debt, he left his 
plantation and removed his family to Hunts- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



415 



ville, the county-seat of Madison County, and 
one year later he was elected mayor of Hunts- 
ville. He continued his professional duties, at- 
taining to a distinction unusual, considering 
his eminent competitors, and his political 
prominence continued to increase. More and 
more his leanings were in the direction of anti- 
slavery legislation, and early in 1826 he began 
to take an interest in the American Coloniza- 
tion Society, which he regarded "as a scheme 
of benevolence to the whole colored population, 
and as a germ of effort capable of expansion 
adequate to the largest necessities in the exter- 
mination of slavery." In December, 1826, he 
appeared before the Legislature with the rough 
draft of a bill "to prohibit the importation of 
slaves into this State for sale or hire," which 
did not please some of the large planters. 

It is not the object of this sketch of this 
distinguished man to follow in detail his polit- 
ical career, which included his removal to Ohio 
in 1835 and the genesis of the Republican 
party, under other names, his nomination on 
November 13, 1839, as presidential candidate 
for the new organization, and a recapitulation 
of the great political movements of the next 
decade in which his was so important a figure. 
His work for the emancipation of the slaves is 
national history. Probably few men suffered 
more in the cause than did James G. Birney, — 
the loss of the esteem of kindred and friends 
which was replaced by contumely and insult, 
the loss of his property, the interruption of his 
professional career which had oft'ered the most 
brilliant future, and the constant detraction of 
those who had every reason to believe in the 
purity of his motives. 

When his father died in 1839, leaving him 
a large estate ami many slaves, he immediately 
emancipated his negroes. In 1840 he was in- 
vited to England as one of the vice-presidents 
of the World's Convention, and in May of that 



year he was nominated for the presidency by 
the Liberal party and at the subsequent elec- 
tion received 7,000 votes. 

Aljout this time he became one of the three 
proprietors of Lower Saginaw (now Bay 
City), Michigan, and, in order to look after 
his interests here and also to find retirement 
after so many years of strenuous struggle, he 
decided to remove to this place. He arrived 
at Saginaw in the fall of 1841 and remained 
there through the winter. At this time all the 
business interests of the valley were at so low 
an ebb that ^^'ebster House, one of the largest 
hotels in Michigan at that time, outside of De- 
troit, built in 1837, was no longer required to 
accommodate the traveling public and had been 
standing unoccupied for some time. Mr. Birney 
and his family secured it as a private dwelling, 
and it continued to be their home during the 
year's residence in Saginaw, before their re- 
moval to Lower Saginaw. 

In association with Dr. Daniel Hughes 
Futzhugh and James Eraser, Mr. Birney had 
previously purchased the stock of the Saginaw 
Bay Company, which company owned the John 
Riley Reserve and had laid out the town of 
Lower Saginaw. They became the successors 
of that company and the title was conveyed to 
Mr. Birney. He acted as trustee until a divis- 
ion of the property was made among the stock- 
holders. 

A memorable occasion during the residence 
of Mr. Birney at Saginaw was that of July 4, 
1 842, when he was invited to address a number 
of his fellow-citizens who were dining with 
him at Jewett's Hotel. The late Norman Lit- 
tle and Judge Albert Miller were appointed a 
committee to wait on Mr. Birney and extend 
the invitation to honor the party with an ad- 
dress in honor of the day. His reply was 
characteristic. He said that he could not do 
nor sav anvthing to honor the anniversary of 



4i6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



American independence and freedom, for that 
day would not have arrived until the release 
from bondage of the three or four million in- 
dividuals, who w-ere held to service by their 
oppressors, had taken place. He consented to 
attend and speak on his own theme and the 
eloquent address on the subject of "Emanci- 
pation" was subsequently made use of as a 
public document. 

In the spring of 1842, Mr. Birney removed 
to Lower Saginaw. His residence here was 
the block -house at the corner of Fourth avenue 
and Water street, built by the Saginaw Bay 
Company. Aside from looking after the in- 
terests of the Saginaw Bay Company as trus- 
tee, he engaged extensively in agricultural pur- 
suits, particularly in stock-raising. He brought 
a fine herd of blooded cattle from Ohio and the 
results are shown in the fine cattle which 
abound through the Saginaw Bay district. 

After coming to Michigan, Mr. Birney was 
again called into active public life by his nomi- 
nation in 1843 again to the presidency. At the 
election in 1844, he received 62.300 votes. In 
1845 he was nominated for Governor of Michi- 
gan and at the election polled 3,023 votes for 
this high office. This closed his public political 
career, although his interest in the anti-slavery 
struggle was not abated. Disease was creeping 
on and after his health failed he did not mingle 
often with his fellow-citizens in Bay County, 
but he had been very benevolent and public- 
spirited and he was always remembered with 
kind feelings by his old neighbors. In order 
to consult medical specialists and also to give 
his youngest son collegiate advantages, he went 
East and settled at Eagleswood, near Perth 
Amboy, New Jersey. He died there from the 
effects of paralysis brought on through a fall 
from a horse, after five or six years of invalid- 
ism, on November 23, 1857, at the age of 65 
years. Fie did not live long enough to realize 



his earlier hopes of the growth and importance 
of Lower Saginaw, nor to see the day which he 
would have considered the true birthday of 
American Independence. 

Mr. Birney was married on February i, 
1816, to Agatha McDowell, who was a daugh- 
ter of United States Judge William McDowell 
and a niece of Governor Madison of Kentucky 
and of Bishop Madison of Virginia. She died 
in 1838, survived by one daughter, — Mrs. 
Florence B. Jennison, of Bay City, Michigan, — 
and five sons, — James, ^^'illiam. Dion, David 
and George. In 1841 his second union took 
place, also a congenial one, to Elizabeth Fitz- 
hugh, a sister of Mrs. Gerritt Smith ; by this 
union there was one son, — Fitzhugh. Mr. 
Birney was a man of the highest Christian 
character and no even incomplete biography 
can be prepared without special reference being 
made to his unaffected piety. The Holy Bible 
was his constant companion and his mind was 
stored with its precious truths. \\'hile a resi- 
dent of Lower Saginaw, it was Mr. Birney's 
custom to conduct religious services in the little 
school house. 

In spite of the great eminence he had 
reached in the political world, Mr. Birney was 
noted for his quiet unostentation. He pos- 
sessed the refined manner which comes from 
mingling with superior society, from his exten- 
sive reading and travel, and he was conspicuous 
even in the heat of debate for a consideration 
for the feelings of others and a remarkable ab- 
sence of selfish self-seeking. Like other re- 
formers and public benefactors, Mr. Birney 
did not escape detraction from high places, but, 
in the light thrown by the progress of events in 
these subsequent years, when the people of the 
North and the South have learned to dispas- 
sionatelv study historv, the name of James 
G. Birney has gained added and enduring 
luster. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



417 




LOF L. JOHNSON, a farmer and 
merchant of Garfield township. Bay 
County, Michigan, owns a well-im- 
proved farm of 40 acres in section i, 
operates a general store in which the Garfield 
Post Office is located, and is one of the leading 
men of his section. Mr. Johnson was born in 
1864 in Sweden, and is a son of Jonas Peter 
and Lena Johnson. 

The father died in Sweden, in 1875, aged 
51 years, leaving his widow with eight children. 
Two of the sons, Alfred and Michael, had 
established themselves at Bay City, and in 
1878 Alfred returned to Sweden and brought 
his mother and the rest of the family to Bay 
City. The mother did not long survive the 
change, dying in the fall of 1878, aged 52 
years. The children all survive and are all 
located in Bay County, Michigan, within 20 
miles of each other. They are : August, a 
farmer of Eraser township ; Alfred, a farmer of 
Eraser township ; Charles, a farmer of Gar- 
field township; Michael, a farmer of Garfield 
township; Annie, wife of Joseph McCaskee, of 
Bay City ; John, a farmer of Garfield township ; 
Frank, a farmer of Eraser township ; and Eolf 
L., of this sketch. 

Two years after coming to Bay County, the 
subject of this sketch bought his farm of 40 
acres in section i, where he has carried on agri- 
cultural operations ever since. In 1898 he 
opened a general store on his property, in which 
the post office is kept, his wife being post- 
mistress. . 

In 1890, Mr. Johnson was united in mar- 
riage with Clara McCabe, who was then a resi- 
dent of Bay City. They have three interesting 
little children: Alma, born in April, 1899; 
Dewey, born in May, 1901 ; and Rudolph, born 
in November, 1902. 

Mr. Johnson has been an active member of 
the Republican party for many years and has 



been called upon to serve in a number of im- 
portant official positions. He was justice of the 
peace for one term ; was supervisor for five 
years ; township treasurer for one year and has 
been a school director for 10 years. These 
offices have come to him practically unsought, 
for he is a man of excellent character, highly 
esteemed by his fellow-citizens. Both he and 
his wife belong to the ]\Iethodist Episcopal 
Church. 




EZEKIAH M. GILLETT. senior 
member of the law firm of Gillett & 
Clark, and vice-president of the Bay 
County Savings Bank, was born in 
Genesee County, New York, and is a son of 
Samuel and Susan (Board) Gillett. 

The parents of Mr. Gillett were both born 
and reared at Chester, Orange County, New 
York, where they were subsequently married. 
Later they became residents of Genesee County, 
where they engaged in farming. The father 
died in October, 1903, aged 80 years. The 
mother still resides at Le Roy, New York. 

Mr. Gillett secured his primary education 
at Le Roy Academy, in his native county, and 
then entered Cornell University, Ithaca. New 
York, where he was graduated in 1874 with the 
degree of Bachelor of Arts. Two years later 
he came to Bay City and entered upon the 
study of the law, with the firm of Hatch & 
Cooley. He was admitted to the bar of Michi- 
gan in 1877 and shortly afterward entered into 
partnership with J. E. Simonson, the firm of 
SimonsonS: Gillett being established on January 
I, 1879. Later, E. S. Clark was admitted to 
partnership and the firm style was Simonson, 
Gillett & Clark until September, 1904, when 
the present firm succeeded. This law partner- 
ship, dating from the time when ^Ir. Gillett 



4i8 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



became interested therein, is the oldest in Bay 
City and Bay County. Mr. Gillett has devoted 
particular attention to corporation and real es- 
tate law practice and for a considerable period 
has been counsel for many of the manufactur- 
ing corporations of the city, including the 
North American Chemical Company and the 
Bay City-Michigan Sugar Company. Since its 
organization, he has been on the board of direc- 
tors of the Bay County Savings Bank, of which 
he also is vice-president. 

Mr. Gillett was first married to Helen M. 
Leconey, of New York City, in 1880. Mrs. 
Gillett died in 1885, being survived by one son, 
John. John Gillett recently accepted a position 
in the engineering department of a large manu- 
facturing company of Cleveland, Ohio, after a 
year spent in the University of Michigan at 
Ann Arbor. 

i\lr. Gillett Vv'as again married, in 1887, to 
Minnie E. Orton, who was born and reared 
in Bay County and is the only daughter of the 
late Charles F. Orton, an early resident, who 
was extensively engaged in the lumber business. 
Mr. Orton died at Duluth, Minnesota, Febru- 
ary 14, 1898. He was a native of Steuben 
County, New York, where he was born in 
1S39. ]\Irs, Gillett inherited from her father 
great musical talent. The latter was organist 
at Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church for a 
long period. Mrs. Gillett is known to the mu- 
sical world through a number of choice musical 
compositions. One son and two daughters 
have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Gillett, viz : 
Gladys, Eleanor and Robert, who are students 
in the Bay City High School. 

Mr. Gillett is a Mason, a member of Bay 
City Commandery, No. 26, Knights Templar. 
He also retains his college fraternity member- 
ship with the Theta Delta Chi society. For a 
number of years he has been a vestryman of 
Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church. 




EV. FRANCIS GRES, pastor of St. 
Joseph's Church, Bay City, Michi- 
gan, was born December 4, 1853, in 
the south of France. During his 
almost 50 years as student and faithful laborer 
in the spiritual field, he has won the approba- 
tion of the church and the love of his people on 
both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. 

Father Gres in boyhood attended the 
schools of Rodez, his native village, but his 
theological education was pursued in Brittany, 
where he was graduated in 1877 and in the 
same year was ordained to the priesthood, tak- 
ing his vows in 1878 in the Society of the Holy 
Ghost. His scholarship and zeal made him elig- 
ible to a responsible position and he Vi-as sent 
to be a professor in the Seminary College at 
St. Pierre, in the island of Martinique, West 
Indies, which city only a few years ago was 
destroyed by the terrible eruption of Mount 
Pelee. After six years of educational work 
here. Father Gres returned to France and 
ser\-ed eight years as a missionary priest. 

In 1892, Father Gres came to America 
and located at Detroit, Michigan, where he was 
assigiied as assistant pastor of St. Joachim's 
Church, and remained in this connection until 
June, 1894, when he came to Bay City as 
assistant to Father J. Roth and later to Father 
F. J. M. Michael Dangelzer. In 1900 he was 
appointed pastor of St. Joseph's parish and is 
now rounding out his nth year in Bay City. 
Father Gres has taught himself the English 
language. His pastorate has been marked 
with large accessions to the church, with a great 
increase in the church school and with added 
enthusiasm among the people. A new church 
will soon be erected, the financial affairs of the 
parish being in a most prosperous condition. 

Rev. Alphonsus Coignard, assistant priest, 
was born in Normandy, France, in 1874, was 
educated at Mortain, France, where he gradu- 




HON. CHESTER L. COLLINS 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



421 



ated in 1892. He then joined the Society of the 
Holy Ghost in the same year. In 1897 he was 
•ordained at Baltimore, Maryland, by His Emi- 
nence, Cardinal Gibbons, as subdeacon and as 
deacon. In February, 1898. he was ordained to 
the priesthood under Archbishop Ryan, at 
Philadelphia. 

Father Coignard taught theology at several 
points for two years and then was sent as priest 
to Chippewa Falls, A\'isconsin. In 1900 he 
came to Bay City as assistant to Father Gres, 
when the latter assumed full charge of this 
parish. Both these reverend gentlemen are 
learned, pious men, whose churchly zeal is only 
•equaled by their manly, consecrated, unselfish, 
Christian individual lives. 

The academy in connection with St. Jo- 
seph's Church is managed by the Dominican 
Sisters, a body of holy women whose reputa- 
tion for piety and scholarship extends over the 
world. Nearly all grades are accommodated 
here, and careful and thorough instruction is 
afforded in all ordinary branches, in the clas- 
sics and in music. Accommodations are pro- 
A'ided in the class room for 350 day pupils. 




ON. CHESTER L. COLLINS, one 
of the leading members of the Bay 
County bar, and president of the 
Michigan State Bar Association, re- 
cently elected judge of the i8th Judicial Circuit 
of Michigan, has been an honored resident of 
the Third Ward of Bay City since the fall of 
1875. He was born at Newcastle, Coshocton 
County, Ohio, June 13, 1847, ^"^ is a son of 
Adgate W. and Susan (Olive) Collins. His 
father's parents removed to Ohio from Massa- 
chusetts, where the ancestors, coming from 
Ireland, had settled prior to the Revolution. 
His mother's parents were descended from 



English ancestors, who settled in ^Maryland and 
Virginia at an early day. 

Adgate W. Collins was born in 1821 in 
Richland County, Ohio, and his wife in the 
same year, in Muskingum County, Ohio. Tliey 
removed from the latter county to Knoxville, 
Iowa, in May, 1852, where Mr. Collins has 
continued to reside, interested in farming, mer- 
chandising and banking. Both parents are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Chester L. Collins was educated in the 
common schools of Knoxville, Iowa, and in 
June, 1868, was graduated at the Iowa Wes- 
leyan University. He then studied law in the 
office of the well-known legal firm of Stone & 
Ayers. The senior member of this firm. Hon. 
William M. Stone, was one of Iowa's War 
Governors. He was admitted to practice in 
the "Hawkeye" State in 1869. Prior to enter- 
ing college, he had assisted on his father's 
farm and had clerked in the latter's store. In 
May, 1864, he entered the army, enlisting in 
Company A, 47th Reg., Iowa \''ol. Inf., and 
served as its sergeant until the company was 
mustered out of the service, on September 28, 
1864. 

From the date of his admission to the bar 
in Knoxville, he continued to practice his pro- 
fession there until 1875, engaging in much im- 
portant litigation, having many cases in the Cir- 
cuit and District courts and the Iowa Supreme 
Court. This condition continued after he cnme 
to Bay City in October, 1875, Judge Collins 
having a record from that until the present time 
in all the courts of the State of Michigan, in 
the Supreme courts of Florida and Louisiana, 
in the United States Circuit courts, the United 
States Courts of yVppeal and the United States 
Supreme Court. 

Judge Collins has been a member of the 
Michigan State Bar Association from the time 
of its organization, has been its vice-president 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and is now its president. For several years he 
was chairman of the committee on legislation 
and law reform and was largely instrumental 
in initiating and carrying on the movements, 
which finally resulted in the Revised Supreme 
Court Rules of Michigan for 1897. 

He has been closely identified with all the 
public-spirited enterprises which have resulted 
so favorably for Bay City. When the Bay 
County Bridge Commission was organized, he 
was one of its first members, his co-workers 
being Joseph Turner of Bay City and the late 
John Welch and Ephraim Kelton. During the 
administration of this commission, the Third 
street bridge was built, that of 23rd street was 
rebuilt, and the South Center (now Cass ave- 
nue) one was taken from 23rd street and re- 
constructed at that point. For a term of five 
years he was a member of the Bay City Police 
Commission and has served for more than 20 
years as a member of the board of trustees of 
the Bay City Public Library. When the bank- 
ruptcy law went into effect. Hon. Henry D. 
Swan, judge of the United States District 
Court, appointed Judge Collins referee in 
bankruptcy for the Northern Division of the 
Eastern District of ^lichigan, being the sole 
referee of that division, and he served as such 
until April, 1904, when he resigned the office 

On May 12, 1874. Judge Collins was mar- 
ried to Sarah Miller, who is a daughter of 
Judge Albert Miller of Bay City, one of the 
best known pioneers of the Saginaw Valley, 
and they have two daughters : Emily and 
Susan Mary. 

Judge Collins' political affiliations have al- 
ways been with the Republican party. His 
first presidential vote was cast for Ulysses S. 
Grant, in 1868. On February 10. 1905, he 
received the Republican nomination for the 
office of judge of the i8th Judicial Circuit of 
Michigan, comprising the county of Bay. His 



election followed in April. Since 1870 he has 
been in fraternal connection with the Masonic 
bodies, and he retains his college membership- 
with the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. His interest 
in the Grand Army of the Republic has always 
been sincere and he has twice served as com- 
mander of U. S. Grant Post, No. 67. A por- 
trait of Judge Collins accompanies this sketch. 




ON. BIRDSEY KNIGHT, one of the 
leading men of Bay County, who 
owns and operates a fine farm of 240 
acres and resides in section 17, town- 
ship 14, range 6, in Hampton township, was- 
born in Avon township, Oakland County, 
Michigan, July 18, 1851, and is a son of Hon. 
Nathan and Harriet (Stephens) Knight and 
grandson of Elienezer Knight, a native of 
Maine. 

Hon. Nathan Knight was born at Otisville, 
near Portland, ]Maine, July 14, 181 7, and 
accompanied his parents to Oakland County, 
^lichigan, in 1826. He completed his educa- 
tion at Austinburg Institute, Ohio, where he- 
taught school prior to coming to Bay City, in 
1854. Securing a farm in Hampton township, 
he lived on it two years and then was a resi- 
dent of Bay City until i860, when he returned 
to the farm, which continued to be his home- 
through life. For four years he was engaged 
in the practice of tl:e law at Bay City in part- 
nership with William Sherman, this being the- 
cnly law firm at that time in the city. Nathan 
Knight was a very superior man, both in edu- 
cation, mental attainments and in the sterling- 
qualities needed in the early days of any com- 
munity. He was sent to the Legislature and 
worked for his section with success and filled 
almost all the offices which demanded a man of 
al)ility and tact. His death took place in Bav 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



423 



County, December 28, 1886. The mother of 
our subject was born in Vermont and died in 
Bay County, jNIichigan, February 14, 1892, 
aged 64 years, six months and six days. Our 
subject is the only survivor of their three chil- 
dren, one of whom died young and the other 
at the age of 16 years. 

Our subject is the only survivor of this old 
pioneer family. He can recall the time when 
no road had been surveyed between his farm 
and Essexville. The present smiling fields of 
grain and rich meadow lands were nothing but 
wild, unbroken prairie, with here and there an 
oasis of timber. 

His father, Nathan Knight, secured 160 
acres from the government and that was the 
nucleus of the present large farm which is 
located in sections 17, 20 and 8. The first 
winter passed on the farm was one of many pri- 
vations, chief among these bein?- a lack of that 
humble vegetable, the potato, which, perhaps, 
is only truly appreciated when it is 
impossible to obtain. The grandfather sent 
a supply from Detroit by the first boat 
in the spring, that then being the only 
means of transportation. Our suljject's father 
had brought several head of stock with 
him and entered into stock-raising with 
his brother-in-law, John V. Stephens, now of 
\'ermontville, Eaton County. Enough hay was 
harvested the first season to winter the stock, 
but, unfortunately, 33 stacks of hay were 
burned by a prairie fire and two- year-old steers 
"were sold for $10, while 300 head of sheep were 
given away to save them from starvation. He 
had already suffered from thieves and wolves 
and did not resume sheep growing. 

In addition to being one of the leading 
agriculturists of Bay County, our sul)ject has. 
like his father, been closely identified wiith 
public affairs. A stanch Democrat, he has been 
the choice of his party for almost every office 



in its gift, being elected on many occasions and 
on others running ahead of his ticket when de- 
feated. He served for 18 consecutive terms 
as supervisor for Hampton township, an office 
his father had filled for 16 terms previously. 
For two years, Mr. Knight held the office of 
superintendent of the poor, and in 1891 he was 
sent as Representative to the State Legislature 
and again in 1893, serving on very important 
committees during both terms. He was mainly 
instrumental in securing the State system of 
road-building. His career at Lansing was in 
every way honorable and his service was such 
as to preserve the esteem in which he was held 
by his constituents and to invite the regard of 
the public, outside his own district. 

On November 21, 1876, Mr. Knight was 
married to Eren A. Hilker, who was born in 
Oakland County, Michigan, September 21, 
1857, accompanied her parents to Clinton, then 
to Ingham and in 1875 to Bay County. She 
is a daughter of Andrew C. and Harriet Hil- 
ker, natives of New York. ;\Ir. and ^Irs. 
Knight have two daughters, namely : Bessie 
I., born June 30, 1878, and Mabel G., born 
February 26, 1880, both young ladies being at 
home. This home is a commodious dwelling 
full of comforts, which was erected by our 
subject's father to take the place of the small 
frame edifice, which was the pioneer residence. 
^Ir. Knight belongs to the Knights of Pythias 
and to the Maccabees. 




^'LVESTER C. YOUNG, one of the 
prominent citizens and well-known 
agriculturists of Portsmouth town- 
ship, Bay County, Michigan, residing 
on a v.ell-cultivated farm of 76 acres and hav- 
ing his home in section 6, township 13, range 
6, was born December 31, 1849, ^t Davison in 



424 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Atlas township, Genesee County, Michigan, 
and is a son of Harvey B. and Elizabetli 
(Schanck) Young, pioneer settlers. 

The father of our subject was born Novem- 
ber 1 6, 1 82 1, at Oswego, New York, and died 
at Corunna, Shiawassee County, Michigan, De- 
cember 22, 1903. By trade he was a shoema- 
ker and in his native State owned a store for 
which he made all the shoes by hand, being a 
very rapid and expert workman. In 1847 he 
■came to Genesee County, Michigan, where he 
followed his trade for 10 years and then moved 
to Corunna where he followed his trade and also 
engaged in farming. He was a man of educa- 
tion and intelligence and always was interested 
in public affairs and political movements. He 
was a stanch supporter of the Republican party 
and frequently made stump speeches during 
the campaigns. His father, Edwin Young, was 
born in Scotland and his mother, in Germany. 

The mother of our subject was born De- 
cember 5, 1823, in Skaneateles, New York, and 
died at Corunna, Michigan, August 18, 1891. 
She was the mother of these children : Eugene 
D., of Owosso, Michigan; Maria (Mrs. Nefif), 
of Owosso, Michigan; Pieria L., of Saginaw 
County, Michigan; Sylvester C, of this sketch; 
Dora (Mrs. Bj-erly), of Owosso, ]Michigan; 
Loella, deceased at the age of 18 years; Julia 
(Mrs. Heggerman), of Council Bluffs, Califor- 
nia; and Glenn D., of Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

Sylvester C. Young was six years old when 
his parents moved to Corunna, Shiawassee 
County, where he went to school and lived until 
August, 1879, when he came to Bay City. 
Ever since he has been a resident of Bay 
County. Shortly after coming here, he secured 
a farm of 36 acres in section 6 and. later, an- 
other tract of 40 acres in section 6, Portsmouth 
township. But a small portion had been 
cleared and Mr. Young undertook quite a task 
when he started in to clear his property and 



put it under cultivation. That he has admira- 
bly succeeded, his fertile fields show as do his 
handsome residence in the midst of shade trees 
and his well-built, commodious barns. Until 
within the last few months, he has operated a 
dairy farm, keeping 20 cows, but now devotes 
all his land and attention, aside from that given 
to public duties, to general farming. 

In 1878, Mr. Young was married at Bay 
City to Maggie Weber, who died June 20, 
1899, aged 41 years. Their children were: 
Charles F., who is in the United States Army. 
Anna (Mrs. Bercot), of Portsmoulh township; 
William S. and Raymond, both attending 
school ; and Letia, who died aged one year. 

Mr. Young has always taken an intelligent 
interest in politics, voting with the Republicans, 
and he has served in a number of the local 
offices, four years as school inspector and four 
years as justice of the peace. He is a consistent 
member of the Presbyterian Church at Bay 
City. He belongs to the Odd Fellows and also 
to the Maccabees. He is a man of sterling 
character and is justly considered one of the 
representative men of Portsmouth township. 



FORGE R. EON, one of the well- 
known and popular citizens of Bay 
City, Michigan, and Circuit Court 
Commissioner, was born in Feb- 
ruary, 1877, in Jackson, Michigan, and is a 
son of Charles H. Fox. 

The parents of Mr. Fox removed from 
Jackson to Bay City, Michigan, when our sub- 
ject was six months old. His father is the 
junior member of the well-known cigar manu- 
facturing firm of Bateman & Fox. which has 
been in existence for the past 20 years. Form- 
erly he was chairman of the Board of Police 
Commissioners, a position from which he re- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



42s 



tired about six months ago. He has always 
been a stanch supporter of tlie Repuljlican 
party. 

Our subject was reared to advanced youth 
in his native city and attended school here until 
prepared for college and then entered Notre 
Dame University and one year later to Albion 
College, at Albion, Michigan. There he re- 
mained three years, completing the full course, 
and after graduation entered the law school at 
Ann Arbor. His graduation followed there in 
1898. when he was admitted to the bar and 
immediately entered into practice at Bay City. 
He has secured his fair share of the legal prac- 
tice of this section, has been retained on many 
important cases and has held a number of local 
offices. In the fall of 1902 he was elected to 
his present position as Circuit Court Commis- 
sioner, to which he was reelected in the fall of 
1904. a very sufficient proof of his efficiency. 
He is admirably located in the Shearer Block, 
Bay City. 

Mr. Fox was married at Bay City to Anna 
AI. Nichols, of Saginaw, Michigan, and they 
have one daughter, — Mary N. Politically, Mr. 
Fox is identified with the Republican party. 
He belongs to the Masons and the Elks and to 
a number of athletic organizations. 

Since boyhood and early college days, Mr. 
Fox has been much interested in all kinds of 
athletic sports. He has not altogether given 
u\) his fondness for the game of baseball and, 
as his Bay City antagonists can testify, has by 
no means lost his skill. During the "nineties" 
he came into State prominence as a bicycle rider 
and was classed with the best outside of the 
professionals. He is very popular in the social 
circles of his own city and with his old college 
comrades with whom he continues in touch by 
keeping up his membership with some of his 
fraternities, notably the Kappa Sigma, of Ann 
Arbor. Mr. Fox belongs to that ever-increas- 



ing class of young men, whose education, train- 
ing and natural fitness bring them early into- 
public life. 




ILLIAM ORRIN CLIFT, senior 
member of the well-known firm of 
W. O. Clift & Company, of Bay 
City, Michigan, who carry on a 
general insurance, real estate, loan and invest- 
ment business, is one of the city's progressive- 
and public-spirited men. Mr. Clift was born 
near Syracuse, New York, March 20. 1852, 
and is a son of Myron and Elizabeth (Hutch- 
inson) Clift. 

The Clift family originated in New Eng- 
land. The great-grandfather, William Clift, ^^ 
was born in Vermont and moved at air-earTy 
day to Onondaga County, New York, where 
his son William was born, near Skaneateles. 

Myron Clift, father of our subject, was 
born in 1821 at Skaneateales. In 1865 he 
w<^nt to Illinois where he bought property and 
resided upon it until 1880, when he removed to- 
Kansas. He married Elizabeth Hutchinson, 
who was born near Syracuse, New York, and 
is a daughter of Orrin Hutchinson. They had 
eight children, five of whom reached maturity, 
namely: Martha E., who resides with her par- 
ents at Burlington, Kansas; William O., of 
this sketch; Lodema H., wife of Marshall 
Mitchell, of Ottawa, Illinois ; Leonora, wife of 
O. A. Smith, of Burlington, Kansas; and 
Emma (Mrs. Cruser), of Burlington, Kansas. 
The family belong to the Universalist Church. 

William Orrin Clift enjoyed common- 
school advantages lx)th in New York and in 
Illinois, and completed his education in the 
Columbus (Ohio) High School. Soon after 
this, he entered the office of Superintendent G. 
A. Doran, of the Ohio State Asylum for Fee- 
ble-Minded Youth, and continued to be em- 



4^6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



ployed there about lo years. After coming to 
Michigan, Mr. Chft became superintendent of 
the Western Plaster Works, at Alabaster; one 
year later, in the fall of 1880, he became a res- 
ident of Bay City. He accepted a position as 
bookkeeper in the First National Bank and 
continued there until the summer of 1887, when 
he assisted in organizing the Commercial Bank 
of Bay City, of which he was cashier until 
1895. For the past 10 years IMr. Clift has 
given all his attention to insurance, investment 
and loans. 

The insurance agency now conducted by 
W. O. Clift & Company was established in 
1878, when the late C. B. Cottrell embarked in 
the insurance business, which he conducted 
until 1885, being succeeded by James B. Cor- 
win, who carried it on until his death, in April, 
1895. His firm was succeeded by Bush & 
Clift. a partnership which continued until July, 
1898, when each partner started an agency 
separately. Mr. Clift represents some of the 
oldest and most reliable insurance companies 
of the world, his list including the Hartford 
Fire Insurance of Hartford, Connecticut ; Home 
Insurance Company, of New York; ^Mutual 
Benefit Fire Insurance Company, of Newark, 
New Jersey; and the Liverpool & London & 
Globe Insurance Company, Commercial Union 
Assurance Company and the Phoenix Assur- 
ance Company, of England. 

Although politically a stanch Republican. 
Mr. Clift prefers that others should hold the 
public offices, as he has no political aspirations. 
He has long been very prominently identified 
with Masonic affairs and is known all over the 
State in fraternal circles. He is past master 
of Joppa Lodge, No. 315, F. & A. M., and 
past high priest of Blanchard Chapter, No. 50, 
R. A. M. ; has been thrice illustrious master of 
Bay City Council, No. 53, R. & S. M., for a 



number of years, and is eminent commander of 
Bay City Commandery, No. 26, K. T. ; is grand 
master of ceremonies of McCormick Grand 
Lodge of Perfection and is most eminent sov- 
ereign grand master of Bay City Council, 
Princes of Jerusalem ; is a member of Saginaw 
Valley Chapter of Rose Croix at Bay City, of 
the Michigan Sovereign Consistory, S. P. R. 
S., at Detroit, and of Saladin Temple, A. A. 
O. N. M. S., at Grand Rapids. His social 
connection is with the Bay City Club, of which 
he was one of the organizers. 

Mr. Clift has a very pleasant home at Bay 
City. He married Ella Gertrude Stocking, 
Kvho is a daughter of A. W. Stocking, of 
Painesville, Ohio, and they have two sons : 
Myron W.;, who is a member of the class of 
1905 of the University of Michigan ]\Iedical 
School ; and Lyle ]\I. The family attend the 
Congregational Church, of which 'Sir. Clift is 
trustee and treasurer. 



HOMAS ATWILL, deceased, was for 
many years a well-known resident of 
Bay County, Michigan, living a part 
of the time at Bay City and the re- 
mainder at Essexville. He was born in Ire- 
land, March 29, 1844, and was a son of Thomas 
Atwill. 

The father of our subject, who was a native 
of Ireland, came to America wdth his family in 
1848, locating in the Province of Ontario. Can- 
ada. He cleared a piece of land and followed 
farming extensively, and in connection with 
this work conducted a hotel. Both he and his 
wife lived to an old age and died at Bothwell, 
Ontario, within two weeks of each other. They 
were parents of seven children — three daugh- 
ters and four sons — all of whom grew to ma- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



427 



turity and were married. One son, William, 
and one daughter, Mrs. Ann ISIcRitchie, still 
live in Canada. 

Thomas Atwill, our immediate subject, was 
the fifth child born to his parents, and was four 
}-ears old when he accompanied them from 
Ireland to Canada. He attended the public 
schools and lived on the farm of his father. In 
.1857, at the age of 13 years, he went with his 
parents to a farm near Bothwell, and while 
there learned the trade of a blacksmith, serv- 
ing a full apprenticeship. He then worked as 
a journeyman at his trade and being a skilled 
workman commanded good wages. He was 
married in 1877, and two years later came with 
his wife to Bay City, Michigan, where he 
wtjrked as a journeyman for eight years. He 
established a shop of his own at Essexville, 
which he conducted a short time, then resumed 
journeyman's work. He later returned to Es- 
sexville and conducted his own shop until his 
death on January 4, 1899. His death was a 
sad loss to his wife and family, who also were 
called upon to mourn the death of Mrs. Atwill's 
mother just six days previous, a sad illustra- 
tion of the fact that "misfortunes never come 
singly." Mr. Atwill was an intelligent, well- 
informed man, and took an earnest and active 
interest in the progress and development of his 
community. He served one term as school 
inspector at Essexville. 

Mr. Atwill was united in marriage, Au- 
gust 2, 1877, with Lomila Rikert, who was 
born in Tuscola County, Michigan, September 
I, 1859, and is a daughter of Philip and 
Amanda (O'Neil) Rikert, her father a native 
of Pennsylvania and her mother, of Canada. 
Philip Rikert was born in 181 4 and at the age 
of 13 years removed with his parents to New 
York State. He was one of six children left 
orphans and being thrown upon his own re- 
sources left home to go to sea. He later be- 



came a captain on the Great Lakes, and many 
were the exciting incidents of his career on the 
water. Later in life he worked at ship-build- 
ing, but at the time of his death in 1890 he was 
living a retired life. He was a well-informed 
man on the current events of his day, was pos- 
sessed of a pleasing personality and had many 
friends who never tired of hearing him recount 
the experiences of his travels. He was mar- 
ried in Marine City, Michigan, moved thence 
to Tuscola, and thence, in 1864, to Bay City, 
where his life ended. He and his wife were 
parents of nine children, seven of whom are 
now living. Religiously, they were members 
of the Methodist Church. Mrs. Atwill was 
four years old when she came with her parents 
to Bay City, and she well remembers the time 
when there were not more than si.x houses on 
the West Side around the bridge on Center 
street. Mr. and Airs. Atwill became the par- 
ents of five children, as follows : Margaret, 
wife of F. B. Hammond, who is identified with 
the Michigan Chemical Company; Mabel, cash- 
ier of Romer, Lovell & Company; Florence, 
deceased ; Evelyn ; and one who died in infancy. 
L^pon the death of her husband, Mrs. Atwill 
removed to Bay City and lives at No. 2002 
Woodside avenue, the property having been 
purchased by her. Religiously, she is a member 
of the Methodist Church, and of the Ladies' 
Aid Society. 



APT. CHARLES M. AVERELL. In 
recalling the well-known names and 
personalities of those whose lives 
were closely and honorably identified 
with Bay City, Michigan, from the time when 
a few scattered dwellings and indifferent busi- 
ness houses represented the present I)usy thor- 
oughfares and wide boulevards to the present 
day, that of the late Capt. Charles M. Averell 



428 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



naturally presents itself. Born in 1824, in Phil- 
adelphia, a son of a sea-faring man, the early 
life of the lad was spent on the water. 

Captain Averell, father of our subject, com- 
manded ocean ships for some years and when 
only eight years old the child became as much 
at home on the water as on the land. When his 
father subsequently located at Buffalo, New 
York, and confined his voyages to the Great 
Lakes, Charles was afforded school advantages 
in that city. By the time he had reached man- 
hood he was the owner of a vessel, the "Aurora 
Borealis," in which he sailed the lakes for some 
time, as master. In 1852 he visited Lower 
Saginaw (now Bay City) but did not settle 
at the growing village until 1857. Even then 
there were no roads into the timber beyond the 
village confines, no bridges had been con- 
structed and all travel and transportation were 
necessarily done by water. 

Our subject continued to sail the lakes for 
some years and for a long time his main in- 
terests were connected with the water. He 
operated a tug and was the agent for a number 
of large Chicago firms, in the chartering of 
vessels. He then became interested in a stone 
business, operated a lime kiln for some years 
and then, with business foresight, purchased a 
dock and engaged in the shipping of lumber 
and the various commodities, which the increas- 
ing business of the city produced. He invested 
largely in real estate and became one of the in- 
fluential men of this section. Captain Averell 
was generally recognized as a man of the 
highest integrity as well as business capacity 
and he was frequently prevailed upon to assist 
in the administration of estates and to act as 
assignee, notably in the case of the Pipe Works 
and the old Lake Huron & South Western 
Railway Company. He built the Averell 
Block, on Center street, in 1867, and another 
block on Washington street a few years later, 



the property still being in the possession of 
Mrs. Averell. 

In 1854, Captain Averell was united in 
marriage with Agnes L. Humphrey, a daugh- 
ter of Judge T. J. Humphrey. She still sur- 
vives, and has a very vivid recollection of the 
conditions existing when she and her husband 
came first to Bay City. Her beautiful home at 
No. 800 Center street was erected by Captain 
Averell about 1869. 

In addition to being one of the city's most 
useful and vigorous business men. Captain 
Averell was deeply interested in the city's edu- 
cational and religious advancement. He was 
a leading member of the First Baptist Church 
and a member of the board of trustees who were 
charged with the responsibility of erecting a 
new church structure. The corner-stone for 
this building was laid with imposing ceremo- 
nies in 1869 and the erection of this $75,000 
building was under the immediate superintend- 
ence of our subject, its dedication taking place 
on February 9, 1873. In connection with the 
affairs of this house of worship, some incidents 
of local history, in which he bore a prominent 
part, are most interesting. 

The history of almost every church will 
show that a few families are always more or 
less concerned in its final completion and equip- 
ment, and this was notably the case with the 
First Baptist Church of Bay City. The Averell 
and Fraser families were conspicuous in this 
congregation, and one member of the latter 
family, Mrs. William McMaster, formerly 
Mrs. James Fraser, at that time a resident of 
Toronto, Canada, paid a visit to her old home 
in Bay City. Noting the needs of the new 
church she decided to make it a valuable and 
unsuspected present, selecting as her assistant 
and almoner, her friend Captain Averell. Prior 
to her return to Toronto, in September, 1873, 
this good lady interviewed Captain Averell and 




k^><0' 



EDWARD A. EICKEMEYER 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



431 



made a compact, by the terms of which she 
agreed to donate a bell for the church, provided 
he would undertake the business of procuring 
the same and the placing of it on the church 
edifice in secrecy, her wish being that the first 
intimation the congregation should have of the 
gift should be when it should peal out in the 
tower to call them to worship. Altliough he 
realized the many difficulties in the way, Cap- 
tain Averell accepted the commission, although 
he was bound to entire secrecy, even Mrs. 
Averell being one to be surprised. 

The bell, one of considerable size and fine 
tone, was ordered from Troy, New York, and 
was shipped to Saginaw in a sealed car, where 
it was retained until Captain Averell had com- 
pleted his plans for hoisting it. At the last 
moment he was obliged to take a few men 
into his confidence, and the car was sent on 
to Bay City. The night was dark, the Captain 
and his helpers almost felt like conspirators as 
they worked and hoisted the huge bell into its 
place in the tower. It was only successfully 
accomplished on account of the nautical knowl- 
edge of our subject, whose long experience on 
the water liad taught him the practical princi- 
ples of hoisting. By six o'clock on the peaceful 
Sabbath morning the great bell hung in place, 
while a party of weary men compelled them- 
selves to look placid and ready to be surprised. 
At clnu'ch time the sweet tones of the bell 
pealed out from the tower, to the gratified and 
pleased surprise of all. 

\Mien it became advisable to place steam 
heat in the church, it was Captain Averell who 
went to Detroit and arranged for the apparatus, 
his work in this line including the firing of the 
boilers until some competent man could be 
found to undertake the job. These interesting 
incidents serve to show how quickly he grasped 
situations as well as how far he ignored per- 
sonal comfort in order to insure the general 

24 



welfare. He was held in the highest esteem in 
church, business and social life, being a man 
of exceptional ability in every situation. 




DWARD A. EICKEAIEYER, de- 
ceased, whose portrait accompanies- 
this sketch, was one of the best 
known citizens of Bay City, Michi- 
gan, coming to it in its early days, casting in 
his fortunes with its pioneers, and devoting 
years of energy and activity to its growth and 
advancement. Mr. Eickemeyer was born Feb- 
ruary 26, 1826, at Westerhof, Hanover, Ger- 
many, and was a son of Frederick Eickemeyer. 
The grandfather of our subject was a mill- 
owner in Germany, and both he and his wife 
passed their entire lives in that country. Fred- 
erick Eickemeyer, our subject's father, was a 
carpenter by trade and he and his wife both 
died in Germany. Edward A., the eldest of 
the family of three children, was the only mem- 
ber to come to America. A brother and a sis- 
ter are both deceased, the former, Karl Eicke- 
meyer, dying in the West Indies, and the latter 
in Germany. 

The late Edward A. Eickemeyer came to 
America in 1854, a young man equipped with 
an excellent education and skilled in a trade 
which made him immediately independent. He 
selected the little hamlet of Bay City, INIichi- 
gan, where a few pioneers had hardily built a 
few huts on the borders of the forest, recog- 
nizing the future possibilities of a village so 
wisely located as to natural advantages. One 
of the first contractors and builders here, he 
became one of the leaders, and the long lines 
of business buildings, the artistic homes and the 
stately structures for educational purposes and 
religious worship, which make this a notably 
beautiful modern citv, attest his mechanical skill 



432 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and stand as enduring monuments to his mem- 
ory. He erected all of the business blocks be- 
tween Adams street and Washington avenue ; 
a number of the elegant mansions on Center 
avenue ; a preponderating number of the school 
buildings ; Bethel German Lutheran Church on 
the corner of RIcKinley and North Aladison 
avenues; the magnificent Pierce home and the 
residence of Hon. Theodore F. Shepard, in 
West Bay City ; his last piece of fine work being 
the beautiful mansion of George W. Ames, the 
prominent real estate and insurance man, of 
Bay City. Until 1886 Mr. Eickemeyer resided 
on the corner of Sixth street and \\'ashington 
avenue, and then removed to the handsome 
modern residence at No. 519 McLellan street, 
which has continued to be the family home. 

Mr. Eickemeyer was married first, in 1854. 
to Frederika Keester, who died January 3, 
1868, leaving four children, namely: Henry, a 
contractor of Bay City, who married Bertha 
Patenge and has four children; Sophia (Mrs. 
William Patenge), who is the mother of eight 
sons and one daughter ; Lizzie, who resides at 
home; and Dorothy, who died aged 15 years. 
On June 26, 1868, Mr. Eickemeyer was mar- 
ried to Sabine Deneke, who was born June 12, 
1842, in Hanover, .Germany, and came to 
America to join her brother August in Frank- 
enlust township. Bay County, in 1867. Five 
children were born to this union, viz : Ernes- 
tine (Mrs. McRae), of Portland, Oregon, who 
has two sons: Johanna lives at home; Edward 
C, of Bay City, who married Carrie Wagar 
and has two children ; Frederick, who married 
Grace Palmer and resides at L'nionville. IMich- 
igan ; and Herbert,, who is a student in Colum- 
bia University, at Portland, Oregon. Mr. 
Eickemeyer died September 3, 1895. By the 
terms of his will he placed the management of 
his large interests in the hands of his widow, 



who is a lady well qualified for such an im- 
portant trust. 

Politically, Mr. Eickemeyer was a stanch 
Republican in national affairs, but in local mat- 
ters he reserved the right to exercise his own 
judgment. He was no office-seeker, but took 
a deep interest in securing good men for the 
administration of city affairs. He served on 
the School Board, but held no other official 
position. He was a charter member of Bethel 
German Lutheran Church, and through life 
one of its most liberal supporters. 



HARLES W. HITCHCOCK, attor- 
ney-at-law, at Bay City, occupying 
convenient offices in Shearer Broth- 
ers' office building, was born in 
Perry County, Ohio, in 1866, and is a son of 
Dr. S. A. Hitchcock. 

Dr. S. A. Hitchcock is a practicing physi- 
cian at Elida, Ohio. His wife died when our 
subject was a small boy. Besides Charles W., 
there \vere one son and two daughters in the 
family, namely: F. A., manager of an oil 
company at Muncie, Ohio ; ISIrs. A. C. Pfeifer, 
of West Bay City, Michigan; and ]\Irs. W. F. 
John, of Elida, Ohio. 

Mr. Hitchcock was reared and secured his 
literary education in his native State. He 
took a law course at Valparaiso, Indiana, and 
was admitted to the bar of that State in 1895. 
In October, 1896, he was admitted to practice 
before the Supreme Court of Michigan, and 
then located in West Bay City, entering into a 
law partnership, under the firm name of Wal- 
ton & Hitchcock. The partnership continued 
for two years, or until [Mr. Walton was elected 
city controller, when Mr. Hitchcock moved to 
Bay City and established himself in his present 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



433 



quarters. His business is a general law prac- 
tice, including private interests and chancery 
cases and on numerous occasions he has ap- 
peared before the Supreme Court. For six 
years he was county commissioner of schools, 
his term of office expiring July i. 1902. As an 
educator he made many frienils for himself 
when he first came to Bay City, in 1886. For 
some years prior to taking up the study of the 
law, he taught in the county and also in the 
city. He has never lost his deep interest in edu- 
cational matters and has been more or less offi- 
ciall}- connected with the public school system 
for a number of years, until professional duties 
claimed his entire attention. 

j\Ir. Hitchcock married Alice ]M. Foster, 
of Rollin, Michigan, and they have two inter- 
esting little children, — \\'right A., aged se\"en 
years, and Alice Dale, aged three years. The 
pleasant family home is located at No. 303 
North Catherine street, ^^'est Bay City. 

In politics, Mr. Hitchcock is identified with 
the Democratic party. Fraternally, he belongs 
to \\'enona Lodge, No. 296, F. & A. IM. ; 
Othello Lodge, No. 116, Knights of Pythias; 
the Sons of Veterans ; the I. O. F., and the 
Royal Arcanum. Mr. Hitchcock was reared 
in the Methodist Episcopal Church and attends 
that church. 



gffiig 



EE E. JOSLYN, of Bay City, Michi- 
gan, has been so closely identified with 
the city's progress and well-being for 
the past decade, and has so worthily 
won his way to civic prominence and public 
esteem, that he stands forth as one of her truly 
representative men. Mr. Joslyn was born July 
23, 1864, at Darien, Genesee County, New 
York, and is one of a family of eight children 
born to his parents, \\'illis B. and Amy R. 
<^ Foster) Joslyn. 



The Joslyn family is an old one in New 
York, and one not unknown on the roster of 
the State's eminent men. Its branches have 
scattered and many of the more vigorous ones 
have included pioneers among their members, 
who have wrought and built along civilization's 
border. Going back to our subject's grand- 
father, in the branch in which we are particu- 
larly interested, we find Benjamin Joslyn tak- 
ing an active part in the War of 1812 and, 
upon his return, settling down in his native 
village and becoming the genial host of the 
local inn. Subsequently he became one of the 
early settlers of Bay Count}', Michigan, and 
his life closed at West Bay City at the age of 
85 years. 

Willis B. Joslyn, father of our subject, was 
born and reared in Genesee County, New York, 
and there married into another old and notable 
family, one which has many representatives in 
public life in the present day. Mr. Joslj-n fol- 
lowed the business of contracting and building. 
His son Lee, who was the fifth member of the 
little family, was seven years of age, when the 
father was called to another State to pursue 
his avocation. The family spent two years at 
Alton, McKean County, Pennsylvania, and 
then settled in Dryden township. Lapeer 
County, Michigan, where Mr. Joslyn contin- 
ued contracting un.til 1888. He then sougl't 
the more advantageous field offered for his 
business in West Bay City. 

Our subject received his literary education 
in the Union School, at Dryden, Michigan, 
\\-here he was most creditably graduated in 
1881. Although but 17 years of age, his men- 
tal alertness was already marked and he was 
willingly welcomed as a pupil in law by Judge 
William W. Stickney, of Lapeer, Michigan. 
His rapid progress under this distinguished 
jurist elicited flattering commendation from 
his preceptor. On account of the necessity of 



434 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



earning the means with whicii to continue liis 
law education,, Mr. Joslyn was not able to give 
his undivided attention to "Coke" and "Black- 
stone," and therefore at intervals taught school 
at various places. For two years he served 
acceptably as the principal of the Otisville 
School and one year as principal of the First 
Ward School of West Bay City. He continued 
for several years to teach through the winter 
seasons, mainly through Lapeer and Oakland 
counties, and to devote his energies assiduously 
to the study of the law during the summers. 
His instructors, among whom were Judge 
George H. Durand, of Flint, Michigan, and 
Thomas A. E. Weadock, then of Bay City, 
now of Detroit, were all men of the highest 
legal ability. He was admitted to the bar in 
June, 1886, and at once engaged in practice at 
West Bay City, where his family was located. 
^Ir. Joslyn has always been versatile and, 
during the early days of his practice, when 
comparatively unknown, he was able to add 
materially to the rather uncertain income of a 
young lawyer by newspaper work. This 
caused his friends to wonder if journalism 
would not have proved as clear an avenue to 
success as the profession he had chosen. In 
March, 1888, he removed to Bay City and occu- 
pied an office in connection with United States 
Commissioner McMath. In the succeeding 
•fall election, he was elected Circuit Court Com- 
missioner on the Democratic ticket, carrying 
the election by a majority of 1,320 votes. In 
1890 he was reelected Circiut Court Commis- 
sioner and two years later was elected prosecut- 
ing attorney. He served with ability and en- 
ergy as city attorney of West Bay City from 
April, 1897 to 1901. 

In April, 1891, Mr. Joslyn opened an office 
of his own in Bay City and in 1898 located in 
his present quarters in the Shearer Brothers' 
Block. As an attorney his rise to prominence 



has lieen rapid but deserved. He handles prob- 
ably as large a private practice as any attorney 
in the county, is local attorney for the Chicago 
& Grand Trunk Railway Company, and on 
April II, 1904, was appointed referee in bank- 
ruptcy by United States District Judge Swan, 
of Detroit, for the whole of Northern Michi- 
gan. ]Mr. Joslyn was the attorney for the plain- 
tiff in the celebrated case of Oscar W. Baker 
against the Pere Marquette Railroad Company, 
to recover about $6,000 damages for the 
loss of a limb in 1887 at the nth 
street crossing in Bay City. Soon after 
the accident occurred, James H. Baker, 
father of Oscar W., brought suit as next 
friend against the Flint & Pere Marquette 
Railroad to recover damages. The jury ver- 
dict in the Circuit Court was appealed and 
judgment was affirmed in the Supreme Court. 
Later the case in which our subject was more 
particularly interested was brought against the 
Pere Marquette Railroad Company by Oscar 
W. Baker, who claimed that he never received 
any part of the money secured on the original 
verdict, one-half having gone to attorneys for 
plaintiff as the fee agreed up^in in the case, 
and the other half having gone to the plaintiff's 
father without legal authority, for the reason 
that the latter had never been made a legal 
guardian of his son and therefore was not en- 
titled to funds paid into his hands. This latter 
suit was intended to recover one-half of the 
total amount. The suit was lately won in the 
Circuit Court, the verdict being for something 
over $5,000. This suit is said to be practically 
without parallel and its progress was watched 
keenly by members of the legal profession. 

In recalling his years of study and self- 
denial, it must be gratifying to Mr. Joslyn, as- 
to any other successful worker, to note the 
rewards of his industry. The bar of his State 
recognizes in him one of its leading advocates- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



435 



He is a man of well-disciplined intellect, clear 
conceptions, thorough knowledge and enthusi- 
asm for his profession, one whose standards 
are high, and one whose personal ambi- 
tions are recognized as thoroughly honorable. 
Faithful to the Democratic party and loyal to 
his friends, he has- given whole-hearted service 
in the offices of trust to wdiich he has been 
elected. The future opens up many possibili- 
ties to this clear-headed, able man of mental 
strength and personal integrity. He is chair- 
man of the Democratic County Committee. 

While Mr. Joslyn has thus been pushing 
his way to the front in his profession, he has 
found time for outside interests. Social by 
nature, in 1887 he became identified with the 
fraternal order of Foresters and in this body 
he has been honored on many occasions. In 
1892 at Bay City he was elected high counselor 
at the meeting of the High Court. In 1893 
at the meeting of the same advanced body, 
which took place at Saginaw, he was elected 
vice chief ranger. In the succeeding fall, he 
^vas appointed high chief ranger to fill the 
vacancy caused by the death of Frank Millis, 
who had filled the office, and he served in this 
high and responsible position until 1897. At 
the meeting at Port Huron, in this year, ISIr. 
Joslyn declined an election and succeeded to 
the honorary title of past high chief ranger. 
At the meeting at Detroit, in 1898, he was 
elected to the office of high secretary, a position 
he continued to fill until 1901, when he de- 
clined a reelection. When the Supreme Court 
of the organization had its notable meeting 
at Chicago, in 1893, he was the accredited 
Michigan delegate as he also was to the Su- 
preme Court meeting which took place in 
1895, in London, England. He was a member 
also of the committee on laws for the organi- 
zation. 

In other leading fraternities, INIr. Joslyn is 



scarcely less prominent. Having passed all 
the lower degrees in Masonry, he is a member 
of the Michigan Sovereign Consistory of the 
Scottish Rite, at Detroit. For four years he 
was chancellor commander of the Bay City 
Lodge, No. 23, Knights of Pythias, of which 
he is still a member, and for four years was a 
member of the Grand Lodge of that order. 
His other associations are with the Odd Fel- 
lows, Modern Woodmen of America, Elks and 
the Knigths of the Maccabees. 

Mr. Joslyn has a pleasant home in Bay City 
and a delightful domestic circle. In 1893 he 
was married to Alice L. Wilson, who is a 
daughter of F. L. Wilson, and they have two 
sons, — Lee E., Jr., and x\llan W., — both of 
whom are being reared to take honorable places 
in life as American citizens. 

During the whole period of his residence 
in Bay County, Mr. Joslyn has been noted for 
his championship of every movement designed 
to promote the public welfare and all his efforts 
have been directed to aid in the advancement 
of all social, educational and moral interests. 
In 1886 he was elected a member of the Bay 
County Board of School Examiners, and in 
1887 he became the secretary of the board, a 
position he resigned September 26, 1887, on 
account of the press of other matters. 

Mr. Joslyn was reared by pious parents in 
the faith of the Lhiiversalist Church and his 
whole religious life has been in consonance 
with the teachings of this faith. He has always 
taken an active part in church jvvork and has 
been particularly successful in reaching the 
young. He was one of the organizers of the 
Young People's Christian Union of the Uni- 
versalist Church, a strong and vita! body and 
has served as its president. In 1889 he was 
a delegate from that initial body to the Lynn, 
Massachusetts, convention of the Young Peo- 
ple's Christian L'nion, and was then elected 



436 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



president of the national organization, and was 
the one who drafted its constitution. This 
notable body of Christian workers has in- 
creased from 26 to more than 160 societies, 
with a membership of 10,000 and has a repre- 
sentation in 21 States. 




ILUA^I L. HIXMAX, a general 
merchant of Bentley. Michigan, is 
one of the entrprising men of the 
northern section of Bay County. 
He was born at Ensley, Newaygo County, 
Michigan, February 21, 1869, and is a son of 
Charles and Susan (Dennison) Hinman. 

Charles Hinman was born in Kent County, 
Michigan, where his father was a pioneer, com- 
ing from New York. In 18S0. Charles Hin- 
man and wife moved to St. Louis, ^^lichigan, 
where our subject enjoyed the advantages of a 
high school training. 

In 1889, William L. Hinman went to 
Thompson's Station, Ogemaw County, JMichi- 
gan, as a clerk in a general mercantile store, 
and remained there two years and then accom- 
panied his employer when the business was re- 
moved to Pinconning, in the summer of 1891. 
In the fall of this year Mr. Hinman opened a 
branch store for his employer at Bentley, it 
being practically the only store at that time in 
the village. Ox-teams were almost the only 
means of conveyance in the section, as there 
was only one team of horses in the township. 
The surrounding country was settling up rap- 
idly and }ilr. Hinman saw that the time was 
rapidly approaching when a first-class general 
store at this point would be a necessity, and in 
1895 he purchased from the estate of his 
former employer the stock of the store he was 
managing, and embarked in business for him- 
self. In 1 90 1 he had the misfortune to lose 



stock and store by a bad fire. He was partially 
insured and immediately went to work to re- 
build and in a few months had larger quarters 
and a more complete stock ready. The business 
has continued to prosper until the present time, 
Mr. Hinman being an excellent manager and 
an accommodating merchant. 

In 1893, i\Ir. Hinman was married to 
Abbie Harvey, who is a daughter of Enoch 
and Permelia (Shaw) Harvey, who came to 
Bay County from Canada in 1881. ]\Ir. Har- 
vey is now the rural mail carrier out of Bent- 
ley and also owns a farm in the vicinity. Mr. 
and Mrs. Harvey have five children : Abbie, 
wife of Mr. Hinman; Maud, wife of Charles 
Ross ; Jennie, wife of Charles Buby ; Leander 
and Roy. Mr. and Mrs. Hinman have two 
interesting little ones : Charles H., born Feb- 
ruary 3. 1895; '^iic' Mildred B., born Septem- 
ber 21, 1896. Mr. and Mrs. Hinman belong 
to the Methodist Church at Bentley. 

Politically, our subject is identified with 
the Republican party. Fraternally, he is a 
Mason, a member of Standish Lodge; and a 
member of the Knights of the Modern !Macca- 
bees and of the Knights of the ]\Iaccabees of 
the World. 




ORACE D. BLODGETT. who is post- 
master and proprietor of a general 
store at iSIunger, in Merritt town- 
ship. Bay County. Michigan, was 
born in Orleans County, New York, April 2, 
1835. He is a son of Stephen L. and Hulda 
(Munger) Blodgett. 

The Blodgett family was established in 
America by three brothers, who came from 
England during the colonial days and located 
in ^lassachusetts. The paternal grandfather 
of our subject served in the Revolutionary 
War with Ethan Allen and was taken prisoner 



AXD REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



437 



at Ticonderoga. He had six sons who were 
Masons and l\v reason of this fact he regained 
his Hberty after nine months of imprisonment. 

Stephen L. Blodgett. fatlier of our subject, 
was born in Middleliury, Vermont, August 20, 
1800, and in Middlebury College was prepared 
for the ministry. He became a local preacher 
of the Methodist Church and followed farming 
throughout life. He remained in Vermont 
until he was 30 years old, then moved to Or- 
leans County, New York, where he resided 
until he moved to Genesee County, Michigan. 
He died there in 1881. Politically, he was a 
Whig until the organization of the Repuljlican 
party, when he became one of its stanch sup- 
porters. He was united in marriage with 
Hulday Munger, who was born in Connecticut, 
near Long Island Sound, October 20, 1810. 
She had four brothers, namely : Lansing, 
Horace, Curtis and Algernon S. The town 
of Munger was named in honor of the two 
last named, who located in Bay City (then 
known as Lower Saginaw) in 1850, and re- 
sided here the remainder of their lives. Mrs. 
Blodgett died at the age of 85 years, after hav- 
ing given birth to five children, as follows : 
Horace D. ; Elvira (Molbey), deceased; Je- 
rome, deceased, who served in the 23rd Regi- 
ment, Michigan Vol. Inf., under Captain Ray- 
mond, in the Civil War; Martha (Auton) de- 
ceased; and Laura (Smith) deceased. 

Horace D. Blodgett lived in his native 
county until he was 10 years old, then accom- 
panied his parents to Richfield, Genesee County, 
Michigan, where he lived for 15 years, attend- 
ing school and working on the home farm until 
he was 20, then engaging at lumbering. In 
i860, he moved to Bay City with his wife, and 
for two years worked in a sawmill. He then 
sailed on the river and bay during the open 
seasons for two years, clerking in a store dur- 
ing the winter months. He next went to Chilli- 



cothe, Missouri, and for three and a half years 
worked in a flour mill there as engineer. Re- 
turning to Bay City, he was then for a time 
employed as engineer in a flour mill, after 
which he engaged in sailing one year on the 
river and bay. In the fall of 1875, ^^^ came to 
the town of Munger, in Alerritt township, and 
took up 40 acres of swamp and timber land, 
which he cleared with much difficulty and put 
under cultivation. On this place he has built 
three dwellings, barns, a store and post office 
building, and at the present time rents two- 
dwellings. He conducts a general store which 
enjoys a liberal patronage and is postmaster 
at Munger, which is an office of the fourth 
class and has two rural routes. Mr. Blodgett 
sold lots for the township hall, a blacksmith 
shop and dwelling on the home farm, a dwell- 
ing, creamery and barn for D. Graham, also a 
dwelling for E. A. Howell. At the present 
time he is giving his entire attention to his 
store and his duties as postmaster. 

In 1859, Mr. Blodgett was united in mar- 
riage with Lydia Mather, who was born in 
INIiddlebury, Vermont, in September, 1835, 
and was a daughter of Isaac Mather. She died 
in 1883. They became the parents of three 
children : Willoughby, who was killed at Bay 
City in 1883 ; aged 23 years ; Arthur J., of West 
Bay City; and Edward, who died in infancy. 
Our subject's second marriage was with Louisa 
E. Ward, who was born in Bay City and is a 
daughter of James and .\nn (Ritchey) Ward, 
the former a native of England and the latter, 
of Scotland. Her parents were married in 
England in 1849, ^^'^'-^ upon coming to the 
United States in 1859 located at Bay City, 
Michigan. Mr. Ward died here at the age of 
82 years, and Mrs. Ward is now living with 
our subject and his wife, being strong and 
active at the age of 84 years. Three children 
have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Blodgett : 



438 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Mary W. ; Jessie ; and Clair. Mr. Blodgett cast 
his first vote for Gen. John C. Fremont for 
President, and lias heen unswerving in his 
support of the Repubhcan party ever since. 
In 1900 he was appointed by President Mc- 
Kinley as postmaster at Munger. He is one 
of the charter meml:)ers of the Presbyterian 
Church at Alunger, and is one of its trustees. 
He donated to the church a half-acre tract of 
ground and assisted in the construction of 
the cliurch edifice. 




IHN A. STEWART, whose Hfe has 
been devoted to educational work, is 
superintendent of the city schools of 
Bay City, Michigan, and is well- 
known in the educational circles of the State. 
He was born in Centerville, St. Joseph County, 
Michigan, and is a son of Alexander and Maria 
(Cummings) Stewart, both natives of New 
Y^ork State. 

Mr. Stewart is of Scotch-English descent, 
his paternal grandparents coming to this coun- 
try from Scotland. Maternally, he is descended 
of good old Puritan stock. His great-grand- 
father Allen was a private in the Continental 
Army during the Revolution and participated 
in the battle of Concord. Alexander Stewart 
was a lumberman during the greater part of his 
active life; both he and his wife have passed 
into the Unknown Beyond. 

John A. Stewart was the fifth of eight 
children born to his parents, of which number 
four are now living. His early education was 
accjuired in the village school of Wyandotte 
and was supplemented by a course in the Ann 
Arbor High School, from which he was grad- 
uated in 1 87 1. He then attended the Univer- 
sity of Michigan, from which he was graduated 
with the class of 1875. Immediately there- 



after, his life work as an instructor began in 
the grammar grade in Saginaw. He taught 
in a private school in Lawrenceville. New 
Jersey, until 1881, in which year he became 
superintendent of schools at Monroe, Michi- 
gan. In 1888, he moved to Port Huron, where 
he served as superintendent of schools until 
1894, in which year he came to Bay City, Mich- 
igan. He is now serving his i ith year as super- 
intendent of the schools of Bay City, and the 
success attending his efforts has firmly estab- 
lished him in the confidence and good-will of 
the people. The duties of his office are onerous, 
there being 127 teachers, exclusive of supply 
teachers, under his direction, and an enrollment 
of 4.279 pupils. There are 21 teachers in the 
Bay City High School, with an enrollment of 
540 pupils. There have been many changes 
for the better effected under his management, 
and it has been amply evidenced that he is "the 
right man in the right place." He has been a 
constant student during these years of labor, 
is a well-informed and broad-minded man, and 
has given his duties that conscientious applica- 
tion of his mind and energies, which never 
fails in the accomplishment of success. He is 
a member of the National Etlucational Asso- 
ciation, the State Educational Association, the 
Superintendents of Schools' Association, and 
, the School Masters' Club, keeping in touch 
with CA'ery organization working along educa- 
tional lines. 

Mr. Stewart was united in marriage with 
Margaret MacDonald, a daughter of John N. 
and Mary (McDowell) MacDonald. Her 
father, now deceased, owned and operated a 
flouring mill many years and was a prominent 
man in Baj' County. To this union have been 
born two children, namely: John A., named 
after his father; and Mary Jeannette, who is 
named after her grandmother. Mr. Stweart 
resides in his pleasant home at No. 908 Van 







D 

a 

< 

K 
W 

-J 

■r, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



441 



Buren street. Fraternally, he is a 32nd degree 
Mason, being a member of the Port Huron 
Blue Lodge, F. & A. M. ; Bay City Command- 
€ry. No. 26, K. T. ; Bay City Council, No. 53, 
R. & S. M. ; Bay City Council, Princes of Jeru- 
salem; Saginaw Valley Chapter of Rose Croix 
at Bay City; Michigan Sovereign Consistory, 
S. P. R. S., at Detroit; and Moslem Temple, 
A. A. O. N. M. S., at Detroit. He is a devout 
Christian and a faithful church worker, being 
an elder of the Presbyterian Church and super- 
intendent of the Sunday-school 




ERARDUS VEXNIX, one of the 
well-known farmers and fruit- 
growers of Hampton township. 
Bay County, Michigan, owning 56 
acres of rich land in section 13, township 14, 
range 5, was born in the city of Oostel Beers, 
Province of North Brabant, the Netherlands, 
April 14, 1830, and is a son of Adrian and 
Anna Katherine (Van Vuct) Vennix. 

The parents of Mr. Vennix lived and died 
in their native land, and our subject and a 
brother were the only members of the family 
to come to America. The home farm of 15 
acres in the Netherlands has been in the family 
for generations, now being owned by an aunt 
•of Mr. Vennix. 

Bereft of his parents when very young, Ge- 
rardus \'ennix went to live with an uncle for a 
time. The home estate he and his brother 
Jacob inherited from their father. When 18 
years old he was drafted into the army and 
■served in the infantry for five years, not taking 
part in war as the country was at peace. After 
liis discharge in 1855, he joined his brother 
Jacob who had come to the United States in 
the previous year, leaving his native land on the 
•day of his marriage. May 20, 1855. He and 



his wife came directly to Bay City, then known 
as Lower Saginaw, where ]\lr. \'ennix soun 
secured work at dock loading and lumbering, 
teaming and assisting in the making of the 
first turnpike roads in this section. It was all 
hard labor, but his rearing had been such as to 
make him strong and hardy, and by the time 
he was ready to take up a small tract of gov- 
ernment land, he had learned enough English 
to enable him to successfully transact business. 

This land, the same rich, mellow, product- 
ive land of his present farm, was then all 
swamp and he bought it for $1.25 an acre. It 
could not now l)e purchased for $100 an acre 
and is not on the market for that. ]\Ir. Vennix 
has a good, comfortable dwelling here, a sub- 
stantial barn and all necessary outbuildings and 
improvements of all kinds and raises sugar 
beets, garden truck and small fruits, and for- 
merly raised considerable grain. 

Mr. Vennix was married first to Ida Rooze, 
who was born in the X'^etherlands three miles 
distant from her husband's birthplace, July 18, 
1822, and died July 18. 1863, the mother of 
six children, three of whom survive, namely : 
Jacob, of Hampton township ; Mrs. Kate Gunn, 
of Chicago: and Mary, wife of Theodore 
Jacobs, of Hampton township. His second 
marriage was to Mary Slattery, a native of 
Ireland, who died February 14, 1868, leaving 
one daughter, — Mrs. Johanna Vanden Hurk. 
On May 20, 1873, Mr. Vennix was married to 
Jacoba Jacobs, who was born in the Province 
of Gelderland, the X'etherlands, October 21, 
1850, and came to Michigan with her father 
in April, 1873. A family of eight children 
were born to this union, the four survivors 
being: Adrian, born in 1875, a resident of 
Hampton township; Ida, born November 28, 
1882; Clara, born May 19, 1885, and Eliza- 
beth, born August 24. 1887. ]\Ir. Vennix has 
29 grandchildren, all of them residents of 



442 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Hampton township except one who hves in 
Chicago. 

Some 14 years ago, Mr. Vennix accompa- 
nied Father Rocht on a trip through Belgium 
and the Netherlands. His absence of 36 years 
had obliterated almost exevy trace of his old 
home and he found scarcely a familiar face. 
His brother Jacob never married and died at 
his home in 1858, a victim of typhoid fever. 

Politically, [Mr. Vennix is a Democrat. He 
has held the office of highway commissioner, 
serving when he was the only member of the 
board and when it consisted of three members. 
He has also served as school inspector and 
three terms as township treasurer. A Catholic 
in religious faith, he has served on the Essex- 
ville Parochial School Board for the past 20 
years. Portraits of 'Sir. and ]\Irs. Vennox 
accompany this sketch. 




ILLIA^l NITSCHKA, who has 
been treasurer of the public schools 
of Kawkawlin township. Bay 
County, ^^lichigan, for the past 
seven years, is one of the township's represen- 
tative farmers, owning a well-improved farm 
of 120 acres in sections 8 and 17, his handsome 
residence being situated in the latter section. 
Mr. Nitschka was born in Germany in 185 1, 
and is a son of Frederick and Anna (Adam) 
Nitschka. 

The parents of ]Mr. Nitschka were also 
natives of Germany. In 1866 they moved to 
Canada with their seven sons, four of whom 
still reside in the Dominion. The father was 
born in 1802 and died in 1895. at the age of 
93 years. His was a remarkable case in that 
he never experienced any serious illness until 
the day prior to his decease. The mother, b.orn 
in 181 6, still survives, making her home with 
her son Henrv, in Canada. 



As our subject was 15 years of age when 
his parents settled in Canada, his education had 
alreafly been secured in his native land. In 
1 87 1 he made his first visit to Michigan, as- 
one of the construction gang of the first rail- 
road which was Ijuilt from Detroit to Grand 
Haven, and called the Northern Railroad. This 
gave him his first opportunity to save money, 
wdiich he invested in farming land upon his 
return to Canada. He secured 100 acres and 
continued to farm his land there for the fol- 
lowing 13 years. During this time he succeeded 
in saving the sum of $2,400, and in 1885, after 
selling his Canadian farm, he returned to ]\Iich- 
igan and purchased 80 acres of heavily wooded 
land in section 8, Kawkawlin township. Bay 
County, paying $1,000 for this tract. In 1892 
he added 40 acres located in section 17. where 
he subsequently erected one of the finest resi- 
dences in the locality. Mr. Nitschka had much 
to contend with in clearing his land and in 
placing it under cultivation. Only 20 acres is- 
still in timber. He carries on general farming, 
raises considerable stock and grows fine fruit. 
His success is that which conies to those who 
persevere and lead industrious, temperate and 
upright lives. 

Mr. Nitschka was married in Canada to 
Anna Bronka, who was a daughter of Gottlieb 
Bronka, who died aged 76 years. They had 
a family of 14 children, namely: ]\Iatilda, de- 
ceased; Ada, born Decemljer 3, 18 



/ ji- 



who 

married John Hetz and has six children ; Oscar,, 
born in 1874: Henry, born in 1876; Anna, born 
in 1879: Emma, born in 1881, who married 
Michael Gerringer and has three children : Au- 
gust, born in 1883: Emil, born in 1885: Ru- 
dolph, born in 1888; Lena, deceased: Minnie, 
born in 1891 ; Mary, born in 1893, deceased; 
]\Iax, deceased; and Ceolina, born in 1896. 
Mr. Nitschka and family belong to the Luth- 
eran Church. Politically, he is a Republican- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



443- 



and has always taken a deep interest in puljlic 
matters in his township. He is universally 
respected and the confidence shown him by his 
fellow-citizens has been especially demonstrated 
in his reelection to one of the most responsible 
of the township offices. 




AMES E. BROCKWAY, a popular 
attorney of Bay City, Michigan, with 
offices in the Shearer. Block, was born 
on a farm near Brockway, in St. Clair 
County, ^Michigan, in 1872. In early boyhood 
he was taken to Port Huron by his parents, 
who were pioneer settlers, of German deriva- 
tion. He was a resolute and ambitious lad 
and, after enjoying the advantages of the pub- 
lic school at home until he was 13 years old, 
went forth into the world to earn his own liv- 
ing. He worked at lumber tallying during the 
summers, and in tlie winter intervals still pur- 
sued his school studies. For se\-eral seasons he 
was thus employed at Au Sable and Oscoda, 
until he earned a sufficient amount of money to 
take a course in the Northern Indiana Normal 
University. Here he applied himself to law 
and afterward acquired a knowledge of stenog- 
raphy, while clerking in various law offices. 
He was admitted to the Bay County bar, and 
became the law partner of Devere Hall. He 
served four years as Circuit Court commis- 
sioner, being elected to that office on the Re- 
publican ticket. 

In 1897. ^Ir. Brockway became a member 
of Company C, of the "Peninsulars," and dur- 
ing the Spanish-American War he served as a 
corporal of that company in Cuba. He was 
also clerk, by appointment, to Brigadier-Gen- 
eral Duffield until that officer succumbed to 
yellow fever and was sent to the hospital. 

During his term of service as Circuit Court 



commissioner. 'Sir. Brockway manifested that 
degree of diligence, discretion and integrity, 
essential in a position of such responsibility,, 
and w'on the merited commendation of his fel- 
low citizens. In the fall of 1904 he was elected 
Representative to the State Legislature on the 
Republican ticket. He is one of the most earn- 
est advocates of a more comprehensive pri- 
mary election law, and unless the promise of 
his early manhood fails of fulfillment, he will 
yet win recognition in higher fields of endeavor. 
Mr. Brockway is a 32nd degree Scottish- 
Rite Mason and a member of ^loslem Temple 
of the Mystic Shrine at Detroit ; also a member 
of the Modern Woodmen of America, the- 
Knights of the Modern Maccabees, the Knights 
of the Loyal Guard, the National League of 
Veterans and Sons and Spanish War Veterans. 




A\'ID F. STONE, i\I. D., a leading 
physician of Bay City, Michigan, 
prominent in his profession and en- 
joying a reputation as a practitioner 
second to none all through Bay and neighbor- 
ing counties, was born March 19, 1843, ^^ 
Parishville, St. Lawrence County, New York,, 
and is a son of James and Surviah (Elithorp) 
Stone. 

James Stone was born in Queens County,. 
Ireland, and was a farmer by occupation. His 
wife was a native of Vermont, belonging to- 
the old colonial family of Elithorp, one well- 
known in the annals of New England. 

The boyhood of Dr. Stone was passed on his 
father's farm in St. Lawrence Couqty and he 
attended the country schools and then entered 
the grammar school at Milton, Halton Dis- 
trict, Ontario, Canada, where he was graduated 
in 1864. Lender Dr. Freeman, a well-known 
medical practitioner at Milton, he read medicine- 



444 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



until he was prepared to accept the position of 
assistant surgeon to the Toronto General Hos- 
pital. There he remained for three years, gain- 
ing practical knowledge of his profession, and 
during this time he took lectures at Toronto 
University, where he was graduated in 1870. 
In the same year he received his medical 
diploma from the College of Physicians and 
Surgeons, of Kingston. Ontario. Very soon 
-thereafter, with his brother, George W. Stone, 
who had graduated in medicine in 1876 from 
the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, of New 
York City, he came to Michigan and located at 
Metamora, Lapeer County. Neither had much 
capital, but they possessed a thorough knowl- 
edge of their profession and our subject re- 
-mained in Lapeer County for 23 years ; during 
this time he and his brother answered calls 
coming from all over the county and from 
points which could only be reached by riding or 
driving horses, because of the lack of railroad 
facilities at that early day. To his readiness to 
respond to all calls for his services, no matter 
what hardships were involved, and to the pains- 
taking care manifested in the treatment of 
every case, must be attributed the success he 
achieved. Some of the land he acquired during 
his residence in Lapeer County, he has disposed 
•of to good advantage, but is still cjuite a holder 
of farm property. 

On June i, 1889. Dr. Stone settled perma- 
nently in Bay City, purchasing a fine residence 
and four lots on the corner of Center avenue 
and Johnson street. He established his office 
■on this property just west of his residence. 
He devoted his entire time to his well-estab- 
lished general practice. His skill as a surgeon 
and his knowledge as a physician have become 
as valued in Bay as in other counties and his 
professional services are always in demand, 
frequently as a consultant. 

On March 21, 1877, Dr. Stone was married 



to Frances Elizabeth Griswold. who is a daugh- 
ter of Harry Griswold, a pioneer of Bay City, 
whose biography and portrait appear elsewhere 
in this work. Dr. and Mrs. Stone have two 
children: Anna R., who is attending the New 
England Conservatory of Music at Boston, 
Massachusetts ; and Albert F., who is a student 
at Yale, where he has a fine standing. 

Dr. Stone is identified with the Republican 
party, but has never taken a very active interest 
in politics, the engrossing demands of his pro- 
fession always absorbing his time and attention. 
At the same time he is recognized as a very 
public-spirited citizen. He belongs to the lead- 
ing associations pertaining to his profession, 
and is very highly considered in the American 
Medical Association, Michigan State Medical 
Society and Bay County Medical Society. Fra- 
ternallv, he is a ]\Iason. 




LBERT McCLATCHEY, a well- 
known member of the bar of Bay 
County, Michigan, and a very suc- 
cessful attorney at Bay City, with 
offices in the Phcenix Block, is a native of this 
State, born in Oakland County, July 31. 1869. 
He is a son of Robert and Nancy (Noyes) 
McClatchey. 

The mother of Mr. McClatchey is deceased. 
She was born in Detroit and that city was the 
family home until 1881, the father being a 
merchant there for a number of years. He now 
lives retired, at Harrisville, Michigan. 

Albert McClatchey was educated in the 
schools of Detroit and was educated in the law, 
under a well-known attorney's direction, 
through the Sprague Correspondence School, 
and was admitted to practice at Bay City, in 
1895. He has had encouraging professional 
success and is well-known in all the courts of 
the city and county. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



445 



Politically, he has been very active in the 
Republican party but has never sought office for 
himself. For the past two years he has been 
secretary of the Republican County Committee 
and did much hard work in the campaign of 
1904, which resulted in so great a Republican 
triumph. 

]\Ir. McClatchey is prominent in the Ma- 
sonic fraternity, being a 32nd degree Mason 
and a member of Moslem Temple of the Mystic 
Shrine at Detroit. He is past grand master of 
the ISIcCormick Grand Lodge of Perfection 
at Bay City, and has filled all the chairs in Bay 
City Lodge, No. 23, Knights of Pythias. He 
belongs also to social organizations and has 
served in many civic bodies. 

^Ir. McClatchey was married in Bay 
County, to Evelyn La Valley. 






ALTER W. WILLIAMS, M. D., 
and MARY A. W. WILLIAMS, 
M. D., are among the most success- 
ful practitioners of medicine of 
Bay City, ^Michigan. They have resided in 
this city several years and have come to 
stay. Both are scions of prominent and rep- 
resentative American families, their ancestors 
having come to tliis country in the early colo- 
nial period. 

Dr. Walter W. Williams was born at Lima, 
Washtenaw County, Michigan, September 14, 
1847, 3rid is a son of Gen. Asa and Hannah 
Harris (Bond) Williams. He is a descendant 
of Roger ^\'illiams, the founder of Rhode 
Island, who established the family in this 
country. 

Gen. Asa Williams was born in New Lon- 
don, Connecticut, October 21, 1802, and was 
descended from a long line of sea captains His 
mother Cynthia (Pride) Williams, was born 



July 27, 1771, and died Octoljer 6, 1855. Gen. 
Asa Williams came to Michigan in 1825, and" 
was one of the first settlers of Washtenaw 
County. He was a man of great industry and 
executive ability and steadily added to his pos- 
sessions until he was owner of many hundred 
acres of valuable land. He took a very active 
interest in political affairs, being a stanch Dem- 
ocrat, and represented his county in the Legisla- 
ture. He was a brigadier-general in the State 
Militia of Michigan, being appointed by Gen. 
Lewis Cass, then Governor of Michigan. On 
December 12, 1830, General Williams was 
joined in marriage with Hannah Harris Bond, 
who was born November 13, 1809, and of the 
10 children born to them, five grew to maturity, 
namely: William Diah, born March 22, 1834, 
who died in 1894, at Marquette, Michigan, 
■after serving 18 years as circuit judge: Han- 
nah Eliza, born January 11, 1839, who lives at 
Atlanta, Georgia, and is the widow of Bishop 
Milton Cravath, to whom she was married Oc- 
tober 4, i860; George Rodney, born February 
4, 1841, who died at jNIilan, Michigan, in 1903 ; 
Edwin King, born March 28. 1843. ^^'^'^o was 
killed at the battle of Gaines' Mill, June 27, 
1862; and Walter \\'. General Williams died 
October 2, 1869, and was survived by his wife 
who died September 17, 1876. 

\\'alter A\\ Williams was reared on the 
home farm in Washtenaw County, Michigan, 
and received his intellectual training in the 
public schools of Lima, the Ann Arbor High 
School and the University of Michigan. After 
leaving college he went West, living in the 
saddle among the cowboys. After the death of 
his father he settled on the old homestead in 
Washtenaw County. Some years later he sold 
it and removed to Eaton Rapids, Michigan, 
where he also engaged in agricultural pursuits. 
He was a Republican and very active in poli- 
tics. He was twice elected to the Legislature, 



446 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



• — in 1887 and 1S89, — and was speaker pro 
tciii. in 1889. He took up the study of medi- 
cine and after securing his degree began prac- 
tice in Eaton Rapids and then moved to Bay 
City in 1897. He spent two years in Cahfornia 
•on account of ill health but never gave up his 
residence in Bay City. He makes a specialty 
of electrical therapeutics and skin and chronic 
diseases. He is a Mason and has been a Knight 
Templar since 1872. 

In 1872, Dr. Walter W. Williams was uni- 
ted in marriage with Mary Achsah Whitaker. 
Dr. Mary A. Williams is a daughter of Charles 
and Laura (Beach) Whitaker. The Whitaker 
coat-of-arms, with a white horse as the crest 
and bearing the motto "Faith conquers and 
truth retains," indicates connection with the 
Wiltshire branch of the family, whose parent 
stock was from Holmes, Lancashire, England, 
the family being one of the oldest of that coun- 
try. The family was established in this couur 
try by Jonathan Whitaker, who came here 
from England, first settling in ]\Iassachusetts. 
He later moved to Long Island, and still later 
to New Jersey, where he died in 1763. He was 
the father of Jonathan Whitaker, who was 
born in 1723 and died June 17, 1786. The lat- 
ter married Mary Muller, and among their 
children was Stephen Whitaker, great-grand- 
father of Dr. Mary Williams. He was born 
January 19, 1747, and died November 4, 1827. 
He was in the battle of Monmouth in the Revo- 
lutionary War. He married Susan White. 
Isaac Whitaker, a son of Stephen and Susan 
(White) Whitaker, was born January 16, 
1792. He served his country in the War of 
1812. He was joined in marriage with Ach- 
sah Cushman, a descendant of Robert Cush- 
man, who served as agent for the "Mayflower." 
They were parents of Charles Whitaker, who 
■was born in Benton, New York, in 1818, and 
■came to Michigan in 1836, locating in Lima, 



^^'ashtenaw County. He owned and conducted 
a large farm for many years and made a spe- 
cialty of thoroughbred stock. He was a Dem- 
ocrat in politics and served many years as super- 
visor. He was a Royal Arch ]\Iason and a 
charter member of Chelsea Blue Lodge. He 
was united in marriage with Laura Beach, 
who was born in Plattsburgh. New York, in 
1824, and was a daughter of William and Polly 
(Kellogg) Beach. Her grandfather, Capt. 
Joseph Beach, who spent the last years of his 
life at Otsego, New York, ser\'ed in the French 
and Indian \Var and later in the Re\'nlutionary 
War. He was probably born at Morristown. 
New Jersey, where he spent a large portion of 
his life and became the father of six children, 
the youngest of whom was William Beach, 
father of Mrs. Charles \\'hitaker. ^^'illiam 
Beach was born in 1782, and moved to Schenec- 
tady, New York, where in 181 1 he was married 
to Polly Kellogg, a direct descendant of Silas 
Kellogg, who was a member of the first Conti- 
nental Congress from Berkshire County, Mas- 
sachusetts. 

Charles and Laura (Beach) Whitaker be- 
came the parents of the following children : 
Finley, of Sandwich, Illinois ; Caroline, of Ann 
Arbor, Michigan ; Mary Achsah, of Bay City : 
Ella, wife of William Tuomy, of Ann Arbor, 
Michigan ; Charles E., one of the most exten- 
sive breeders of Black Top sheep in Michigan, 
who owns and manages the old homestead near 
Chelsea; and ^^'illiam I., a physician of Du- 
rand, Michigan. 

Dr. Mary A. W. Williams received lier 
early education in the public schools and then 
took the regular course in the medical depart- 
ment of the L^niversitv of Michigan. graduating' 
in 1 89 1. During the last year of her course 
she served as assistant to the professor in gyne- 
colog3^ She commenced practice in 1891 at 
Eaton Rapids and continued until 1897, since 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



447 



■which time she has practiced in Bay City, mak- 
ing a specialty of the diseases of women and 
chilch-en. She is a member of the Bay County 
IMedical Society, Michigan State Medical 
Society, and American Medical Association. 
In 1900 she went to New York City and pur- 
sued a course in the New York Post-Graduate 
School. 

Dr. Mary A. W. Williams was brought up 
according to the old ideas, that is, — to build up 
an honoral)le character, which is l)etter than 
wealth to meet the emergencies of life; in this 
she has proved the sterling qualities of her in- 
heritance. She organized the U. & I. Club, 
a literary society at Eaton Rapids, Mich- 
igan. Soon after coming to Bay City, she 
joined the Woman's Club. She is allied with 
church and society. 




^'RUS HILLER. who is well-known 
to the citizens of Bay County, ]\Iichi- 
gan, has been engaged in various 
lines of business during his long resi- 
dence here and has been highly successful. He 
is at the present time treasurer of the Bay City 
Cold Storage & Produce Company, Ltd., of 
which he was one of the organizers. 

Mr. Hiller was born near Flint, in Genesee 
County, Michigan, December 26, 1841, and is 
a son of John and Mary (Sherman) Hiller. 
His grandafther, John Hiller, who. was of Ger- 
man parentage, was born in New York State, 
and there followed farming throughout his 
active career. He spent the last years of his life 
at the home of his son, Jacob, in West Bloom- 
field, Michigan, where he died in 1864, aged 
about 93 years. His wife was also of German 
descent, coming of the Frank family of that 
country. 

John Hiller, father of our subject, was born 



in Rochester, New York, January 28, 1808, 
and died June 30, 1895. ^^ came to JNIichigan 
in 1836, shortly after his second marriage, tak- 
ing up and buying land to the extent of 300 
acres in Burton township, Genesee County. The 
house built by him in 1841 is still standing and 
is now occupied by his daughter, Mrs. Jane 
Warner. He was a very energetic man and 
continued actively engaged in farming until 
within a few years of his death. There was no 
issue by his first marriage. His second mar- 
riage was with Mary Sherman, a daughter of 
John Sherman, of Churchville. New York, and 
they had 12 children, 11 of whom grew to 
maturity, as follows: David W., of Flint, 
Michigan; Philena, deceased in 1898, aged 63 
years, who was the wife of John Graves, of 
Flint, Michigan; Mary, widow of Theophilus 
Herrington, of Flint, Michigan; Cyrus; Levi, 
of Walla Walla, Washington; James P. and 
Frank, of Flint, Michigan; Henry, of Portland, 
Oregon ; Lewis, of Flint, Michigan : Jane, wife 
of Charles K. Warner who is on the homestead 
farm ; and Charles, of Flint, Michigan. Relig- 
ously, Mr. and Mrs. Hiller were members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, being devout 
Christians and of charitable inclinations. He 
was a serious minded man, of happy disposi- 
tion, and had the happy faculty of making 
friends. No worthy seeker of help was ever 
refused by him, and in the early days of the 
community he sheltered many a pioneer until 
a clearing could be made and a caljin built for 
him and his family. Such acts of kindness 
made him a man beloved by all who knew him. 
Cyrus Hiller continued on the home farm 
until he was within a few months of being of 
aije, buviup' of his father the remainder of the 
period of his minority. For two winters before 
leaving home, he engaged in teaching school, 
then in the summer of 1863 worked on a farm, 
in order that he might attend school the follow- 



448 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



ing winter and brush up for his duties as 
teacher. He then taught in Wheatland, Hills- 
dale County, Michigan, and while there met 
Emily M. Sweezey, to whom he was afterward 
married. He and his wife stayed on her father's 
farm until the fall of 1864, when our subject 
moved to Saginaw and taught school in that 
vicinity the following winter. In the spring 
of 1865 he purchased a farm near Fentonville 
and followed farming, then sold out and pur- 
chased a farm near Flint, where he continued 
for seven years. Selling that property to good 
advantage, he returned to Saginaw in 1873, 
and in the spring of the following year became 
proprietor of a grocery store, which he success- 
fully conducted for four years. He ran a mill 
boarding house two years, and in 1880 pur- 
chased a planing mill in Bay City. He operated 
this plant successfully until 1899, when it was 
destroyed by fire a second time; he had imme- 
diately rebuilt it in 1889, when it wfts first 
burned. He decided not to rebuild after the 
second conflagration, and turned his attention 
to farming. He owns 328 acres in Wisner 
township, Tuscola County, which he now rents 
on shares. Mr. Hiller was one of the organiz- 
ers of the Bay City Cold Storage & Produce 
Company, Ltd., and has served as treasurer 
from the first. This is a flourishing enterprise, 
having an extensive patronage in Bay City and 
the surrounding country. Our subject resides 
with his family at No. 922 North Monroe 
street. Bay City, where he is enjoying the fruits 
of a well-spent past in the happy companionship 
of his family. He is a progressive, public-spir- 
ited and well-informed man, taking an earnest 
interest in the affairs of the nation. State, 
county and his immediate community. He is 
a man of striking manner and strong personal- 
ity, and to a marked degree enjoys the confi- 
dence and friendly feeling of his acquaintances. 
Mr. Hiller married Emily M. Sweezey, a 



daughter of Joseph yi. Sweezey, of Wheatland, 
Michigan, and they have an adopted daughter, 
]\Iaude. Religiously, they are members of the 
Madison Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, 
of which he is a trustee and a class leader. 
Fraternally, he is a member of Bay City Lodge, 
No. 129, F. & A. M. He is a Democrat in 
politics, and has served on the School Board of 
Bay City for some years. 




EV. EUTROPE LANGLOIS, priest 
in charge of St. Ann's Church, at 
Linwood, Bay County, Michigan, 
and a beloved cleric of the diocese of 
Grand Rapids of the Roman Catholic Church, 
was born March 17, 1865, in the Province of 
Quebec, Canada, and is a son of Cyrille and 
Cesarie (Guimont) Langlois. 

The parents of Father Langlois were both 
born in Canada, but the family is of French 
extraction. From his youth Father Langlois 
was designed for the church and his education 
was pursued with this end in view. After his 
graduation from the University of Quebec, he 
was ordained to the priesthood in 1892. At 
once he came to Michigan and was settled first 
at Au Sable, then at Muskegon, and still later 
at West Bay City. Since October 6, 1894, 
he has been located at Linwood, and notable 
are the changes he has brought about. He has 
accomplished the building of the beautiful St. 
Ann's Church and the adjoining parsonage and 
has also rebuilt the old Church of the Sacred 
Heart, on the stone road, in Kawkawlin town- 
ship, and he has in contemplation the building 
of a commodious brick parsonage in connection 
with the latter church. When he came here at 
the call of duty, he found church affairs and 
church property in a bad condition. The pres- 
ent cheerful outlook, as to members and finan- 




HENRY B. LANDON, A. M., M. D. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



451 



ces, is the outcome of his well-directed energy, 
his pious zeal and executive ability. Both with- 
in and without his congregations, Father Lang- 
lois had many friends and admirers. 

Father Langlois belongs to the same relig- 
ious body as did Father Jacques Marquette, 
who, more than 200 years ago, also inspired 
by duty and religious zeal, came to what is now 
the State of Michigan on his mission of peace, 
helpfulness and good-will. This work has 
never failed and Father Langlois, in his sphere 
and generation, has nobly done his part. 



EXRY B. LAXDOX. A. M., M. D., 
whose period of medical practice ex- 
ceeds that of any other physician in 
Bay City, Bay County, Michigan, 
was born March 31, 1840, in Monroe, Michi- 
gan, where he received his early mental train- 
ing. In 1857, Dr. Landon entered the Univer- 
sity of Michigan, where he graduated in 1861, 
with the degree of A. B. He then enlisted in 
the army, being commissioned ist lieutenant 
of Company D, 7th Reg. ^lichigan Vol. Inf., 
of which regiment he was later appointed adju- 
tant, and sen'ed in that capacity until the battle 
of Fair Oaks. In this engagement he was 
severely wounded, being shot tlu'ough the 
chest and left arm. He was compelled to re- 
turn home and soon afterwards resigned his 
commission. In the fall of 1862, he entered 
the medical department of the University of 
Michigan, but his studies were interrupted in 
the fall of 1863 by his appointment as assist- 
ant surgeon of his old command, with which 
he remained until the spring of 1864. He then 
resigned his commission and resumed his med- 
ical studies in the University at Ann Arbor. 
He graduated from the medical department 

25 



in 1865. The degree of A. M. was conferred 
upon the Doctor by his alma mater in 1866, 
in recognition of his ability and scholarly 
attainments in the line of his profession. 

In the spring of 1865, Dr. Landon located 
in Bay City, where he remained until 1890. 
In the fall of the latter year, he went to Denver, 
Colorado, where he was engaed in the practice 
of medicine for three years, returning in Jan- 
uary, 1894, to Bay City. 

Of the pioneer physicians of Bay City in 
1865, the only ones left are Dr. Landon, and 
Dr. Johnson, of St. John's. When the former 
settled here the number of medical practition- 
ers was about 10. Of these Dr. Landon is the 
only survivor now living in Bay City, and the 
oldest of all in continuous active practice. Of 
late years he has been, to a considerable extent, 
on the retired list. 

Dr. Landon has been twice married. On 
January 22, 1862, he wedded Martha J. Wil- 
liams, of Ann Arlx>r, Michigan. She died in 
November, 1883, leaving a son, Dr. Herbert 
W. Landon, of Lansing, Michigan, who spent 
one year in the University of Michigan, and 
afterwards studied in the office of Dr. McGraw, 
in Detroit. He graduated from the Detroit 
Medical College in 1898, and was interne for 
a year at St. Mary's Hospital, being six months 
in the medical ward, and an equal period in the 
surgical ward. He was married in February, 
1904, to Dorothy Sterling, of Monroe, Michi- 
gan, a member of a prominent family there. 
He is now in active practice at Lansing, being 
located near the State Agricultural College at 
that point. 

On January 28, 1866, the subject of this 
sketch was married to Florence Fitzhugh, the 
youngest daughter of one of the pioneer fami- 
lies of this region, which has always been very 
prominent. One son resulted from this union, 



452 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



— Dana F.. \vlio is a student in the Bay City 
High School. 

Dr. Landon is a member of the G. A. R., 
and of the mihtary Order of the Loyal Legion 
<of the United States. He is one of the earliest 
members of the Bay County Medical Society, 
of which he was secretary when Dr. Horace 
Tupper was its president. He is the oldest mem- 
ber in Bay City. Next in length of member- 
ship is Dr. Isaac E. Randall, of West Bay City, 
after whom comes Dr. Robert W. Erwin. A 
portrait of Dr. Landon accompanies this ar- 
ticle. 



ETER LAROUCHE, one of the well- 
known, industrious farmers of Gar- 
field township. Bay County, Michi- 
gan, owns a valuable farm of 80 acres 
which is situated in section 13, in a locality well 
adapted to general farming and stock-raising. 
Mr. Larouche was born November 12, 1859, 
in the Province of Quebec, Canada, and is a 
son of Peter and Madeline (Claveau) La- 
rouche. 

The family is of French extraction. The 
father did not survive his 46th year, dying in 
1865 and leaving his widow with a family of 
nine children, of whom our subject was the 
sixth in order of birth. 

Mr. Larouche obtained his education in 
the schools of Quebec, and in 1879 came to 
Bav City. He spent the succeeding 10 years at 
work in sawmills and lumber camps. In 1885 
he married and two years later bought 40 
acres of his present farm. This he cleared and 
placed under cultivation, and in 1 902 he bought 
an adjoining 40 acres. He has clear^ed 50 
acres from its wild state and has converted it 
into a valuable farm. In 1899 he built his 
barn and in 1902 he built his comfortable 
home; his property has all the necessary out 



buildings and the surroundings are those that 
tend to make the estate a very pleasant place of 
residence. 

In 1885, Mr. Larouche married Eugenia 
St. Peter, who is a daughter of Buzzel St. 
Peter, of Canada. They have seven children : 
Peter, born May 12, 18S6: Eva, born August 
12, 1889: Clara, born April 20, 1892: Arthur, 
born October 25, 1894: Alice, born May 30, 
1897: Azilda, born October 3, 1901 : and Jen- 
nie, born May 5, 1904. The family belong to 
the Catholic Church. 

Politically, [Mr. Larouche is a Republican. 
He belongs to the Maccabees. He is a very 
highly respected citizen of Garfield township, 
an honorable and upright man in business rela- 
tions, and a careful father and a good neighbor. 




RANK A. MILLER, a well-known 
and prosperous agriculturist, whose 
farm is located in section 35, Fraser 
township. Bay County, [Michigan, 
was born in [Macomb County, Michigan, Feb- 
ruary 17, i860. He is a son of Adam and 
Caroline (Wiles) Miller. 

Adam Miller was biirn in Germany, Feb- 
ruary 24, 1829. There he received his school- 
ing, and afterwards served in the German 
Army for two years. He came to America 
February 2, 1856, landing at New Orleans. He 
was the son of John and Fortunate (Stader) 
Miller, the former of whom died when about 
90 years old, and the latter at the age of 63 
years. Adam Miller proceeded from New Or- 
leans to Cincinnati, where he remained two 
years, working in brick-yards, and also on the 
levee, up and down the [Mississippi River. He 
then went to Cleveland and from there to 
Buffalo, and thence into Canada, where he did 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



45; 



farm work. In 1858, he came to Michigan and 
engaged .in fisliing on Lake St. Clair. 

In April, 1859. Adam Miller married Caro- 
line Wiles, a native of Lancaster, Ohio, whose 
father was a carpenter by trade, and spent 
most of his life in Detroit. To their union 
seven children were born, namely : Frank A. ; 
William Henry, who married a Miss Prender- 
gast ; Joseph, who married Georgiana Rivet 
and has two children, — Gladys and Nelson ; 
Charles ; George, who first married Jessie Jack- 
son, and afterwards Annie Jones, and has one 
daughter, — Etta ; and Jesse, deceased. 

Frank A. Miller married Emma Benware, 
a daughter of Joseph Benware, of Wallaceburg, 
Canada. They have had the following chil- 
dren : John ; Frank ; Elizabeth ; Cora Belle, de- 
ceased; Frederick; Annie; Charles: Louis, de- 
•ceased ; Guy ; Emma : Hugh ; and Willie. 

In politics, the subject of this sketch is a 
Republican. Fraternally, he is a member of 
the Maccabees. He belongs to the Catholic 
Church. 



LARENCE H. SLOCUM, general 
manager of the Michigan Cedar 
Company and one of the prominent 
business men of Bay City, Michigan, 
was born at Providence, Rhode Island, and is 
a son of Henry W. and Sarah B. (Bonnell) 
Slocum. 

The father of Mr. Slocum died when he 
was an infant. His mother was born y^ years 
ago, in New York City, and came to Bay City 
when her son was four years old. She still 
survives, a beloved member of his family. 

Mr. Slocum obtained a good common- 
school education and took a business course at 
what was then known as Devlin's Business Col- 
lege. It later was merged into the Bay City 
Business College. He was 16 years old when 



he entered into business, beginning as office 
Ixiy with Shearer Brothers^ a large real estate 
firm, with whom he continued for eight vears. 
He then accepted an opening in the lumber 
business with A. Maltby, who subsequentlv 
organized the Maltby Lumber Company, which 
failed some time later. Mr. Slocum was con- 
nected with one of the city's large manufactur- 
ing concerns for about a year and then accepted 
the position of general manager for the Michi- 
gan Cedar Company, one for which he is 
admirably fitted. He has a thorough knowl- 
edge of the business and possesses the traits 
which are absolutely necessary to success. His 
strict attention to the details as well as to the 
various outside complications and interests, and 
his thoughtful and intelligent management 
have resulted in the most satisfactory con- 
ditions. 

The Michigan Cedar Company was orga- 
nized January 20, 1903, and has associated 
with it the firm of W^ C. Sterling & Son, of 
Monroe, Michigan, the largest cedar dealers in 
the State. This company manufactures cedar 
poles, ties and posts, deals in timber lands, en- 
gages in logging and handles at wholesale all 
kinds of forest products from the Michigan 
woods. Their convenient offices are in the 
Shearer Brothers' Block in Bay City, where 
I'Mr. Slocum may be found ready to do business, 
with the assurance of satisfactory work as to 
quality and quantity. 

In 1898, Mr. Slocum was married to Lulu 
■D. Hulburt, who was a daughter of Dr. Hul- 
burt, of Bay City, and a charming and accom- 
plished lady. She died in June, 1903, lea\-ing 
a son, Harold Hulburt, who was born May 16, 
1899. Mrs. Slocum was sadly missed in her 
home circle and in the city's social life, as well 
as in the First Baptist Church, being the lead- 
ing spirit in many of the young people's benevo- 
lent societies. Mr. Slocum is also a church 



454 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



worker and has always shown an interest in the 
Sunday-school. In 1893 he erected a heautiful 
home on Green avenue, in the nth Ward, 
which is presided over by his aged mother. 

Mr. Slocum is one of Bay City's representa- 
tive men and has become so entirely through 
his own efforts, his success plainly indicating 
the results of close, persistent attention to the 
business in hand and the living of a clean, 
manly, moral life. 




LFRED J. RADZINSKI, M. D., a 

prominent and successful physician 
and surgeon of Bay City, Michigan, 
has been engaged in practice here 
throughout almost the whole of his professional 
career. He was born in Trenton, Michigan, 
March 19, 1877, and is a son of Frank and 
Mary (Slazinski) Radzinski, both of whom re- 
side in Detroit. 

Frank Radzinski was born in Posen, Ger- 
many, in 1846, and in his early days entered 
upon the study of medicine, but as his parents 
were wealthy land-owners he lacked the incen- 
tive to continue. Until he was 28 years of age, 
he spent his time looking after his father's 
interests. He was well educated in the schools 
of Germany, becoming a fluent speaker of the 
French, German, Polish and English lan- 
gauages. He served in the Franco-Prussian 
War and was severely wounded a number of 
times, receiving injuries from which he will 
never fully recover, although his general health 
is good at the present. After the war, in which 
his parents lost all their property, he spent one 
and a half years in France, then came to Amer- 
ica in 1874, locating in Detroit where he had 
a sister residing. He remained a short time, 
then returned to France, but he found that he 
liked America much better than Europe. He 



returned to this country and secured employ- 
ment in a car works in Detroit. After three 
of four years he started for himself in the fruit 
business and during the following 10 years 
engaged in that business with great success. 
He next conducted a grocery store, butcher 
shop and saloon until alwut 1896, when he re- 
tired from business activity to enjoy the com- 
forts of home life. He is one of the wealthiest 
Polish citizens of Detroit, and a man of high 
standing in that city. He is a member of the 
Polish Roman Catholic Church. He was uni- 
ted in marriage with Mary Slazinski, a daugh- 
ter of Jacob Slazinski of Bay City, and they 
became parents of seven children, four of whom 
died of diphtheria in infancy. The three who 
grew to maturity are : Alfred J., Lottie and 
Paul. Mrs. Radzinski is also a member of the 
Polish Roman Catholic Church and is secre- 
tary of the Ladies' Catholic Benevolent Asso- 
ciation of St. Francis' Church. Mr. Radzinski 
is vice-president of the church and one of its 
trustees. 

Alfred J. Radzinski attended St. Casimer's 
Parochial School, from which he was gradu- 
ated, then the pul^lic schools and the Jesuit Col- 
lege in Detroit. He next attended the Detroit 
College of Medicine, from which he was grad- 
uated in 1902. He pursued a course of study 
in German under a private tutor, and is also a 
fluent speaker of Polish and English. He 
worked his own way through college, being 
employed a portion of the time in the press and 
mailing departments of the Detroit Free Press. 
After graduation, he was sent by Professor 
Robbins to Michigamme as assistant to Dr. 
H. H. Loveland, with whom he remained 16 
weeks. He then came to Bay City, where he 
has since practiced. He is lecturer on chemis- 
try at Mercy Hospital, supreme examiner for 
the Bay City Polish National Association and 
examiner for the Chicago Benevolent Asso- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



455 



elation and tlie Milwaukee Benevolent Asso- 
ciation. 

Dr. Radzinski was united in marriage with 
Angeline B. Dardas. a daughter of Jacob and 
Mar)' (Kath) Dardas, of Bay City. Jacob 
Dardas, one of the oldest Polish citizens of Bay 
City, was born in Posen, Germany, April 27, 
1855, and is a son of Martin and Rosa (Ca- 
don) Dardas. His father was born in Posen, 
Germany, in Noveml^er, 1816, and died in 
1882, aged 66 years. He was a farmer all his 
life and lived most of the time in the ancestral 
home of his wife, which had been in the family 
for many years. Jacob Dardas remained on 
the home farm until he was 18, then worked 
for two years in \arious places through Ger- 
many, thus becoming familiar with the country 
and master of his home language. When a 
boy he attended a German school. At the age 
of 20 years he came to the United States, locat- 
ing at Bay City, Michigan, whither his brother 
Lawrence had preceded him by two years. 
Bay City was then a very small town, and Mr. 
Dardas cut down timber within a block of his 
present place of business. During his first 
four years here he worked in a sawmill, then 
was employed three years in a salt-block. In 
1882 he started a grocery at No. 701 South 
Farragut street and continued there until 1901, 
when he purchased his present fine frame build- 
ing, which has two large store rooms on the 
first floor, and a large hall on the second, that is 
used for society meetings, dances and other 
gatherings. He conducts a large retail grocery 
in this building, and enjoys an extensive pat- 
ronage throughout the ^•icinity. When Mr. 
Dardas first came to Bay City, there were but 
48 Polish families located here, while at the 
present time there are in the neighborhood of 
1,300. He is a Republican in politics, and 
served one year as supervisor from the Fifth 
Ward, two years as alderman and two vears as 



a member of the School Board from the Eighth 
Ward. In 1891, Mr. Dardas erected a fine 
residence at No. 705 South Farragut street. 
He was married in 1877 to Mary Kalh, of 
Bay City, and the following children blessed 
their home: Angeline, wife of our subject. Dr. 
Radzinski; John, of Bay City; Michael M., 
who is a meml>er of the class of 1906. in the 
law department of the University of Michigan 
at Ann Arbor; Jacob, of Bay City, who is in 
the class of 1906 in the medical department of 
the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor: and 
Frank, Clara and Mary. Religiously, the fam- 
ily belong to St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic 
Church, of w-hich Mr. Dardas was trustee four 
years. 

Dr. and Mrs. Radzinski are the parents of 
one daughter, — Lulu. They are consistent 
members of St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic 
Church, and move in the higher social circles 
of the city. The Doctor is a member of the 
Polish benevolent associations of Bay City, Chi- 
cago and Milwaukee; of the Bay County Med- 
ical Society; and of the American Medical 
Association. He is a thorough student of his 
profession, and takes high rank among his 
brother practitioners. 




LARENCE E. WALKER, an enter- 
prising citizen of Bay City. Michi- 
gan, who is secretary and manager 
of the Bay City Cold Storage & 
Produce Company, Ltd., was born in Lapeer 
County, Michigan, March 9, 1865. He is a 
son of Roger T. and Harriet (Banghart) 
Walker. 

Thomas Walker, grandfather of Clarence 
E., was born in England and came to America 
just Ijefore the birth of Roger T., who was the 
eldest child. The family located temporarily 



+56 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



at Detroit, and subsequently took up some 
land in Lapeer County. The farm still remains 
in their possession, Thomas Walker's youngest 
son, David, being its occupant. 

Roger T. Walker was born in Detroit and 
grew up on the home farm. About 1S72 he 
started in the lumbering business at Lapeer, 
and continued operating there until about 1892, 
when he moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, and 
was engaged in the same business there until 
two months before his death. He then re- 
turned to Detroit, where he died in 1902, at 
the age of 62 years. Air. Walker married Har- 
riet Banghart, who was born in 1840 in Al- 
mont, IMichigan, and is a daughter of Josiah 
and Caroline (McCracken) Banghart, of Al- 
mont, Michigan, the former a native of New 
Jersey. Their union resulted in three children, 
namely : Clarence E. : Frank B.. who is a phy- 
sician in Detroit ; and Blanche, wife of Henry 
H. Brewer, of Toronto, Canada. Mr. Walker 
was a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, in which he w^as very active. He was 
a class leader and held nearly every position in 
the church. His widow, who lives in Detroit, 
is also a member of the same religious denomi- 
nation. In politics, he was a Republican, but 
never sought office. Fraternally, he was a 
member of the Royal Arcanum and the Knights 
of Honor. 

Clarence E. Walker received his early men- 
tal training in the public schools of Lapeer and 
in the Detroit Business University and was 
afterward employed by his father in the lumber 
business. He became his father's manager and 
■thus continued until 1892, when he came to 
Bay City and purchased an interest in the gro- 
cery house of Kelley & Company, remaining in 
that line 10 years. In 1902 he went on the 
road as a salesman for the wholesale grocery 
firm of Reid, Murdock & Company, of Chi- 



cago. He still handles their business in the 
Saginaw Valley. 

Mr. W^alker organized the Bay City Cold 
Storage & Produce Company, Ltd., in March, 
1903. In the following April the coiupany 
began the erection of its present fine plant. 
It is equipped with the "Linde" type of ammo- 
nia machine, erected by The Fred W. Wolf 
Company, of Chicago. The machine has a 
capacity to cool the same space as would 12 
tons of ice in 24 hours. Each room is con- 
trolled separately, the temperature ranging 
from 90 degrees Fahrenheit to zero. The plant 
has been a success from the start, and the com- 
pany purchases from the farmers of this sec- 
tion large quantities of produce, eggs, butter, 
cheese and fruits. 

Mr. Walker married Maude Elliott, a 
daughter of Melvin and Emily (Jones) Elliott,, 
of Jackson, Michigan. They have three chil- 
dren, — Frank Elliott, Ruth Emily and Harry 
Edward. The parents are members of the 
Madison Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, 
of which JMr. Walker is a trustee. The subject 
of this sketch is a Republican in politics, but 
has never sought office. 




VWRENCE RUHSTOFER, a repre- 
sentative farmer of Kawkawlin town- 
ship. Bay County, ]Michigan, who 
owns a fine farm of 120 acres situated 
in section 17, was born in 1861 in the town of 
Amherst, Erie County. New York, and is a 
son of Joseph and Catherine (Rentier) Ruhs- 
tofer. 

The father of our subject, who was a small 
farmer and highly respected citizen of Erie 
County, New York, died in 1877, in his 6ist 
year. His wife died in 
vears. 



1874, at the age of 56 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



457 



Lawrence Ruhstofer was the youngest of 
the six children born to his parents, four of 
whom are now Hving. He was mainly edu- 
cated in Niagara County, New York. In the 
spring of 1879 he removed to Bay County, 
Michigan, as an employee in a sawmill, sub- 
sequently working through the summer seasons 
as head sawyer in different mills and during 
the winter seasons at lumbering in the woods. 
As sawyer he worked at Ashland, Wisconsin, 
and at Duluth, Minnesota, and spent some time 
in Georgia, sawing for the Altamaha Cypress 
Lumber Company. He was also employed for 
12 years as head sawyer at Menominee, Michi- 
gan, for the Kirby-Carpenter Company. 

In 1886 he purchased the first 40 acres of 
his present farm, on which his home is situ- 
ated; in January, 1896. he added another 40 
acres, and in 1898 still another 40-acre tract, 
all of it, at the time of purchase, being covered 
with valuable timber. This has been cleared 
off to a considerable degree and much of the 
land is under a fine state of cultivation. Mr. 
Ruhstofer is one of Kawkawlin township's sub- 
stantial men, and his prosperity is the direct 
result of his own enterprise and inustry. 

On December 25, 1885, our subject was 
united in marriage with Mary J. Shaw, of Bay 
City, who is a daughter of Sidney Shaw, a 
well-known millwright and cabinet-maker of 
that city; Sidney Shaw and wife are now resi- 
dents of Kawkawlin township, having a farm 
in section 18. Mr. and Mrs. Ruhstofer have 
had seven children, namely: Sidney Lawrence, 
born June 17, 1887; Ithamar Roy, born June 
23, 1889; Walter John, born February 18, 
1891 ; Charles Raymond, born August 17, 
1892; Margaret Esther, born July 3, 1894; 
Byron Wesley, bom December 7, 1895; and 
Isabella Eleanor, born December 11, 1899. 

Politically, Mr. Ruhstofer is identified with 



the Republican party. Fraternally, he is a; 
member of the Knights of the Modern !Macca- 
bees. In religious belief he is a Baptist. 




HARLES A. BIGELOW, who 
throughout his business career has 
been identified with lumbering inter- 
ests, is secretary, treasurer and gen- 
eral manager of The Kneeland-Bigelow Com- 
pany, engaged in the manufacture of lumber, 
one of the most important business enterprises 
of Bay City. Mr. Bigelow was born in Wayne 
County, Michigan, near the city of Detroit, 
July 18, 1866, and is a son of Albert E. and 
Jennie (Ashcroft) Bigelow, and grandson of 
William C. and Sally Ann (Prindle) Bigelow. 
His great-grandfather was a soldier in the Rev- 
olutionary War and the War of 181 2. He 
lived in Champlain County, New York, many 
years and was buried there. 

William C. Bigelow, the grandfather, was 
born in Champlain County, New York, and 
died in 1895, aged 78 years. He settled in 
iWayne County the year Michigan was admit- 
ted to the L^nion, and for two years conducted 
a stage between Detroit and Redford. He then 
married and settled upon a farm of 80 acres, 
fwliich he purchased in Redford. To this tract 
he constantly added until at one time he was 
the owner of 640 acres. He soon began operat- 
ing a sawmill, the lumber produced being 
hauled on sleighs and wagons to Detroit. He 
furnished much of the lumber used in the con- 
struction of the Michigan Central Railroad and 
continued lumbering in that vicinity until 1868, 
when he sold out and moved to Detroit. There, 
in partnership with his son, Albert E., under 
the firm name of W. C. & A. E. Bigelow, he 
established a lumber business, which they con- 
tinued to conduct for six years. His marriage 



458 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



to Sally Ann Prindle resulted in the following 
offspring : Albert E. ; Marian, wife of George 
Reed, of Detroit; George, who died in early 
manhood ; Louis, who married Ida Norton, of 
Detroit; and Altha, who died in the bloom of 
young womanhood. 

Albert E. Bigelow was born in Radford 
township, Wayne County, Michigan, July 14, 
1840, and grew up on the home farm. He 
attended the Normal School at Ypsilanti, and 
Bryant & Stratton's Business College at De- 
troit, and while in college was employed as clerk 
in a shoe store. After his marriage he conducted 
a farm in Redford township until 1868, when 
he went to Detroit and formed a partnership 
with his father in the lumber business. After 
the retirement of the latter in 1874, our subject 
continued the business under the firm name of 
A. E. Bigelow until 1889, when his son, 
Charles A., became a partner, the firm name 
being changed to that of A. E. Bigelow & 
Company. They continued together until 
1893, when his son retired from the firm on 
account of poor health, and he then conducted 
it alone until 1895, when he sold out to W. A. 
C. Miller. He has since lived in retirement 
from active business duties. Fraternally, he 
is a member of Detroit Commandery, No. i. 
Knights Templar. During the early part of 
the Civil War he enlisted in Company J, 24th 
Reg., Michigan Vol. Inf., and saw much hard 
fighting. On the first day of the battle of Get- 
tysburg, he was badly wounded and lay in a 
stone barn unattended until July 4th, when he 
was sent to the hospital, and then home to 
recuperate. He rejoined his regiment in the 
fall of 1863, and in the battle of the Wilderness 
had the misfortune to be again wounded, the 
ball passing within an inch of his first wound. 
He was incapacitated for further service and 
returned home. He was married to Jennie 
Ashcroft of Redford, bv whom he had four 



children, of whom Charles A. is the only one 
now living. Mrs. Bigelow was a member of 
the Baptist Church. She died January i, 1875, 
and in 1876 he formed a second union with 
Lucia Pierce, of Redford, who died in 1878, 
without issue. He formed a third marital 
union at Marquette, Michigan, in 1881, with 
Lydia A. Houk, of Detroit., and they have two 
children : Fred and Ruby. He is a Republican 
in politics, as was his father. His wife is a 
member of the Baptist Church. 

Charles A. Bigelow received his early edu- 
iCational training in the public schools and in 
the Detroit High School, from which he was 
graduated. While still in high school, his connec- 
tion with his father's lumber business began, 
and he continued as employe until 1889, when 
he became a partner in the business, the firm 
becoming A. E. Bigelow S: Company. He con- 
tinued with the firm until 1892, when he with- 
drew and went to California because of poor 
health. He remained there a year and upon his 
return took care of the business until Febru- 
ary, 1894, his father being absent on a trip 
to California. He then became traveling sales- 
man for The Michelson & Hanson Lumber 
Company, of Lewiston, Michigan, and contin- 
ued in that capacity until the organization of 
The Kneeland-Bigelow Company, which was 
incorporated under the laws of the State of 
Michigan on May 30, 1901. Its officers were 
David M. Kneeland, of Lewiston, president ; 
George H. Cross, of Lewiston. vice-president ; 
and Charles A. Bigelow, secretary, treasurer 
and general manager. The officers remain the 
same with the exception that Herman Lundene 
became vice-president in January, 1902, in 
place of George H. Cross, who retired in 1901. 
The company first purchased 7.000 acres of 
hemlock and hardwood timberland in Mont- 
morency County, and now hold something like 
10,000 acres. They have their own equipment 



r^ 





CAPT. BENJAMIN BOUTELL 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



461 



and do their own logging. On October i, 
1 90 1, they took possession of their present saw- 
mill on South Water street^ Bay City, where 
they own a tract of land between 19th and 21st 
streets, extending from South Water street to 
the river. Between September ist and March 
15th, they employ nearly 200 men in logging, 
and between June ist and September ist the 
force is reduced to about 100 men. Their mill 
is in operation night and day and gives employ- 
ment to about 80 men the year around. The 
lumber is shipped in car-load lots by rail, most 
of it going to the southern part of the State. 
It is a concern of great magnitude and has 
added materially to the prosperity of the city. 
IMr. Bigelow is a man of recognized ability, far- 
sighted, of keen intellect and of superior execu- 
tive ability, and his personal efforts have made 
possible the success of this undertaking. 

On October 11, 1887, Charles A. Bigelow 
was united in the bonds of wedlock with Min- 
nie A. Durkee, a daughter of Philip and Mary. 
(German) Durkee, both natives of Franklin 
township, Oakland County, Michigan. Our 
subject and his wife are consistent followers 
in the Christian Science faith. Politically, he 
is a Republican, but has never filled any office. 




APT. BENJAMIN BOUTELL, of 
Bay City, Michigan, whose portrait 
accompanies this sketch, has filled a 
commanding position in the business 
world of the Saginaw Valley for a very long 
period, and no one has been more closely iden- 
tified than he with the agencies which have 
■contributed to the extending of education, the 
encouragement of religion and the cementing 
of those ties of abounding good-will wdiich 
have strengthened Bay City's prosperity. This 
prominent citizen is a native of Michigan, and 



was born in Deerfield township, Livingston 
County, August 17, 1844. and is a son of Dan- 
iel and Betsey (Adams) Boutell. 

The names of Captain Boutell's forebears 
were noted ones in New England history. His 
mother, who w'as a niece of President John 
Quincy Adams, was a woman of great force of 
character, and it is not unreasonable to suppose 
that her son was endowed by Nature with many 
of the characteristics and attributes which made 
the Adams family one of the most conspicuous 
ones in the United States for generations. Cap- 
tain Bouteirs mother survived until 1880. His 
father, Daniel Boutell, was born in 1800, in 
New Hampshire, but the family removed to 
Syracuse, New York, in his childhood. There 
he was reared and there married, and when he 
subsequently remo\-etl to Livingston County, 
Michigan, he was one of the very first settlers 
in Deerfield township. 

In 1858, Daniel Boutell remo\ed to Birch 
Run, on the public highway between Flint and 
Saginaw, wdiere he conducted a hotel known 
as the Half- Way House, from which he moved 
in the winter of 1859 to Bay City. Here he 
purchased the old Sherman House, which he 
rebuilt in 1862, renaming it the Boutell House. 
This hostelry was burned in 1865 and Mr. 
Boutell died in 1866. He was a man of local 
prominence wherever he lived and was noted 
for his outspoken Americanism. He served as 
a United States officer in the War of 1812. In 
early life a Wliig, he became an ardent suppor- 
ter of the Republican party upon its organiza- 
tion. He was one of the early Free Masons of 
this section. 

The early educational opportunities of Cap- 
tain Boutell were the best afforded by the sev- 
eral sections in which he was reared, but he 
was the son of parents who had old-fashioned 
notions of thrift, and he was early taught that 
independence is only acquired through Indus- 



462 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



try. He recalls the first few pence he earned, 
when but a little lad, directing a plow horse 
through the corn-field, his years then number- 
ing not more than eight. That he had grown 
into a capable and self-reliant youth by the 
time he was 12 years old, is evidenced by the 
fact that at that age his parents left him in 
charge of the farm when they moved to Birch 
Run. Thus from tender years he has been ac- 
customed to responsibility and his successful 
grappling with the world, in after years, may, 
perhaps, be traced to those early lessons. 

When the youth subsequently came to Bay 
City, he assisted his father in the conduct of 
the Boutell House, and, while its destruction 
by fire in 1865, was considered at that time a 
great calamity, it brought atout his connection 
with the industry which, in its various combina- 
tions, has been the main business of his life. 
In those days, as now, water transportation 
was so intimately connected with every busi- 
ness outlook in this section, that opportunities 
for work on one of the crafts on the river were 
more or less easy to secure, and the future pres- 
ident of great fleets of vessels obtained a posi- 
tion as wheelman on the tug "Wave." So 
quickly did he master the necessary details of 
navigation that he was made a mate in the fol- 
lowing year. Just at this time, the steamer 
"Ajax," which had been a losing investment 
for its owners, the First National Bank of Bay 
City, was in need of a capable and reliable as 
w-ell as energetic commander. The owners of 
the vessel made an arrangement with the young 
mariner to become its captain with the under- 
standing that his remuneration should be deter- 
mined by the financial sheet he could show at 
the close of the year. During this year Captain 
Boutell made $6,000 for the company and thor- 
oughly established his reputation for capacity. 
In 1868 he commanded the passenger 
steamer "Reynolds," and in the following year. 



the tug "Union." In this year he went into 
partnership with Capt. William Mitchell, under 
the firm name of Mitchell & Boutell. This 
firm did a general towing and coal business 
until 1886, when it was dissolved, with large 
assets and mutual esteem. Captain Boutell then 
entered into partnership with Capt. P. C. 
Smith, putting into comission the tugs "Annie 
Moiles," "Sea Gull" and "Westover," while 
Captain Smith put in the tugs "S. S. Rum- 
mage," "Ellie M. Smith" and "Sarah Smith." 
The business was conducted two years as the- 
Saginaw Bay Towing Association and then 
the Saginaw Bay Towing Company was 
formed, Captain Boutell contributing, in addi- 
tion to his other vessels, the "Niagara," and 
Captain Smith, the tug "Peter Smith." This 
business association continued until 1892, when 
Captain Boutell purchased Captain Smith's in- 
terest. During its season of greatest activity, 
the company owned and operated 21 tugs and 
employed about 500 men in the various depart- 
ments. At first the field was local but their 
operations subsequently extended to Georgian 
Bay, Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. The 
tarifif laws on Canadian logs, prohibitory in 
effect, had the effect of curtailing the farther 
extension- of the towing business. Many of 
the great rafts contain as many as 4,000,000 
feet of lumber. During his 39 years of activity 
in th:s business. Captain Boutell is credited 
with handling more timber than any other 
known man in any country. 

In approaching the great enterprises with 
which this great lumber captain of industry 
has beai been identified and with which he has 
been more or less connected either as organizer, 
director or both, the biographer finds that they 
include about all the important industries of 
the Saginaw Valley, which have been markedly 
successful in their results. In 1899 he orga- 
nized the Marine Iron Company of Bay City,. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



463. 



of which he has been president ever since ; in 
1 89 1 he organized the Boutell Transit Com- 
pany of Bay City, which owns the steamer 
"Hiram W. Sibley" and the schooner "Twin 
Sisters," of which company he was president ; 
in 1895 he organized and became president of 
the Boutell Towing & Wrecking Company, of 
Sarnia, Ontario; and in 1896 he bought a con- 
trolling interest in the Hampton Transit Com- 
pany which owned and operated the steamer 
"Charles A. Eddy," and also was president of 
this company. In 1899 he promoted and 
assisted in the organization of the Boutell Tow- 
ing & Transit Company, of Boston, Massa- 
chusetts, of which he is vice-president, the 
company doing a coastwise towing business. 
He is vice-president of the Michigan State 
Chicory Company, of Bay City, and is a direc- 
tor of the Commercial Bank of Bay City. 

Captain Boutell was one of the capitalists 
who first became interested in the growing of 
sugar beets as a gerat national industry and he 
has been one of the most active promoters in 
the State of ^Michigan. He owns a number of 
great farms, one of 1,200 acres near Essex- 
ville being devoted entirelv to the growing of 
sugar beets. He assisted in organizing the 
Bay City Sugar Company, which is the largest 
organization in Michigan, and was its vice- 
president; was one of the organizers of the 
^Michigan Sugar Company, and is a director 
in the Marine Sugar Company: helped to orga- 
nize the Lansing Sugar Company, of which he 
was president and general manager; was vice- 
president of the Saginaw Sugar Company and 
built their house; was vice-president of the 
Carleton Sugar Company of Carleton, Michi- 
gan, building their house; and has also been 
prominent in the beet sugar industry in other 
localities. He built the second sugar house In 
the State of Colorado, for the Eaton Sugar 
Company, and also helped to organize the 



Windsor Sugar Company, of Windsor, Colo- 
rado, and built their house, being president of 
both companies. He was also vice-president 
of the Wallaceburg Sugar Company, of \\'al- 
laceburg, Ontario. Other companies which 
have been promoted and assisted by him are 
the Mount Clemens Sugar Company, the West 
Bay City Sugar Company and the Menominee 
Sugar Company. He was one of the original 
promoters of the ^Michigan Chemical Company 
for the manufacture of alcohol from the refuse 
of the beet sugar houses. Captain Boutell was- 
one of the originators of the Pacific Portland 
Cement Company and is one of the three capi- 
talists who control this business. This indus- 
try has grown from an original output of 500 
barrels a day to 2,500. In 1905 he organized 
the Boutell Steel Barge Company, which owns 
eight steel whaleback barges and four steamers, 
having a carrying capacity of 34,000 tons per 
trip, that are engaged in carrying freight on 
the Great Lakes and on the Atlantic Ocean. 
This company is made up of himself and his 
sons. He was also the organizer of the Excel- 
sior Foundry of West Bay City and is part 
owner in the Craig Foundry Company of To- 
ledo ; was one of the promoters of the Saginaw 
\'alley Telephone Company, of which he is 
a director and is one of the directors of the 
Elm Lawn Cemetery Company. He has large 
interests in various coal fields in Bay County. 

On December 21, 1869, Captain Boutell 
was united in marriage with Amelia C. Dut- 
linger, of Pine River, Michigan, who died in 
December, 1902, the mother of two sons: 
Frederick E. and William H., who are partners- 
in a large mercantile business at Bay City. 
In February, 1904, Captain Boutell married 
Cornelia Dutlinger, the twin sister of his first 
wife. 

For years Captain Boutell has been a very 
liberal supporter of the Madison Avenue Meth- 



464 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



■odist Episcopal Church, of which his vener- 
ated mother was a devoted member from its 
founding until her death. Fraternally, his 
Masonic connection is important. He belongs 
to Joppa Lodge, No. 315, F. & A. M., to the 
Masonic Scottish Rite bodies at Bay City, to 
Bay City Commandery, No. 26, K. T., to the 
Michigan Sovereign Consistory, S. P. R. S., 
at Detroit, and to Moslem Temple, A. A. O. 
N. M. S., at Detroit. He is also a member 
of Lodge No. 88, B. P. O. E., at Bay City, and 
of the Bay City Club. In matters of civic 
moment he has always been actively interested 
and there are few benevolent institutions here 
which have not been assisted by his generosity. 



RTHUR D. BAILEY, secretary and 
treasurer of the American Relief 
Society, at Bay City, Michigan, was 
born in Tuscola County, Michigan. 
August 21, 1866, and is a son of Henry and 
]\Iary (Hall) Bailey and grandson of Ezra 
Bailey. 

Ezra Bailey, who was born in Vermont 
and moved to Canada at a very early day, was 
a large lumber operator. In 1855 he came to 
the lumber districts of Michigan and later set- 
tled in Tuscola County, taking up a large body 
of land and continuing extensive lumbering to 
within a few years of his death. He married 
Ann Wintemoot, who was born in Germany 
but was reared in Canada. She was six years 
old when the battle of Lundy's Lane was 
fought and she could recall that her father's 
house was used as a hospital. 

Henry Bailey, father of our subject, was 
born in 1840 in Canada, near Niagara Falls, 
and was reared in Tuscola County, Michigan. 
Upon his father's decease, he succeeded to the 
latter's lumberinar and farmino- interests. Later 



he operated a hotel at Mayville and also en- 
gaged in railroad construction. He married 
Mary Hall, who is a daughter of Benjamin 
W. Hall, of Tuscola County, Michigan, and 
to them were born seven children, six of whom 
survived to maturity, viz : James M., who died 
in July, 1898, at Detroit; Arthur D., of this 
sketch ; Charles A., of West Bay City ; George 
D., of Chicago; and Margaret N. and Harry 
H., of Detroit. Mr. and Mrs. Bailey have 
resided at Detroit since 1887. They are mem- 
bers of the Christian Church. Mr. Bailey is a 
member of the Independent Order of Odd Fel- 
lows. 

Arthur D. Bailey was educated in the public 
schools of Mayville, and began his business 
career as a clerk in a hardware store. In 1887 
he accompanied the family in its removal to 
Detroit, and secured employment for himself 
in a Detroit hardware house, with which he 
remained until 1891, when he came to Bay 
City. Here he was employed for about five 
years as a bookkeeper with a crockery and wall 
paper company, in which he owned stock. 
When he became bookkeeper and cashier for 
the Home Security & Life Association of Sagi- 
naw, in 1896, he sold his crockery interests. 
He remained at Saginaw until 1898 and then 
came back to Bay City and entered into partner- 
ship wnth George E. Markham, under the firm 
name of Markham & Bailey. Soon after this, 
Mr. Bailey was offered a desirable position 
with the National Protective Society of Bay 
City, and he sold his partnership interest and 
became superintendent of an agency for the 
above-mentioned organization. He continued 
in that position until the founding of the Amer- 
ican Relief Society. 

The American Relief Society was organ- 
ized and incorporated in May, 1900, under the 
laws of the State of Michigan, with Israel 
Ruelle as president and Arthur D. Bailey as 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



465- 



secretary and treasurer. The original board of 
directors included these gentlemen with Mar- 
tin L. De Bats, Silas Forcia and Benjamin F. 
Reed. The only change made since then has 
been the election of Franklin P. iNIcCormick 
as attorney and director in place of Benjamin 
F. Reed. The aim of this organization is to 
furnish benefits for sickness, accidental injury 
and death. Its charter permits it to operate 
in any State by complying with the laws of 
such State. Its home office is in the Phrenix 
Building, Bay City. 

Mr. Bailey was married to Neva Hilliker, 
who is a daughter of Sanford and Sarah Bar- 
ton) Hilliker, of West Bay City. They are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
on the West Side. 

Politically, Mr. Bailey is a Democrat but is 
not active in party affairs. He is fraternally 
associated with Wenona Lodge, F. & A. M. ; 
Othello Lodge, Knights of Pythias, West Bay 
City; the Maccabees; the Modern Woodmen 
of America ; the Knights of the Loyal Guard ; 
the Modern Archers of America, having been 
chief clerk of the organization until 1904; and 
he also belongs to the Bay County Mutual 
Insurance Association of F. & A. M. Socially, 
he is a member of the Bay City Club. 

Mr. Bailey justly stands high in the estima- 
tion of his fellow-citizens, and the company 
with which he is identified occupies an import- 
ant place in the insurance world. 




VASTUS LORD DUNBAR is super- 
intendent of the Bay City water- 
works, and in point of continuous 
service is the oldest official of Bay 
City, having served in that capacity since Jan- 
uary, 1872. He was torn in Ellsworth, Con- 
necticut, .August 13, 1846, and is a son of Hon. 



Horace and Jeannette (Lord) Dunbar, and 
grandson of Aaron Dunbar. He comes of an old 
Scotch family which was established in Amer- 
ica in the 17th century, and has been prominent 
in various States of the Union. 

Hon. Horace Dunbar was born in Connec- 
ticut in 181 7, and became owner of 100 acres 
of land in Litchfield County, Connecticut. He 
was a man of prominence and wide acquaint- 
ance in that section, and was frequently called 
into public service. He was a Republican after 
the organization of that party, and served in the 
State Legislature of Connecticut and as select- 
man of his borne town for many years. Relig- 
iously, he was a member of the Congregational 
Church. His death, which occurred in May, 
1 89 1, was sadly mourned by his fellow-citizens 
as an irreparable loss to the community. His 
wife, Jeannette Lord, was a daughter of Eras- 
tus Lord, who was of English descent and a 
prominent farmer in Connecticut. She was 
born in 1819, and died in May, 1891. just three 
weeks before her husband. Five children were 
born to them of whom four grew to maturity, 
oiu" subject being the youngest. One son, 
Everett S., was a ist lieutenant in the 13111 
Regiment, Connecticut Vol. Inf., and served 
three years in the Union Army during the Civil 
War. 

Erastus L. Dunbar was reared on the home 
farm and recei\-ed a common-school education. 
When the Civil War broke out, he wished to 
enlist in the service but being the only one left 
at home, his parents would not consent to it. 
In 1864, he left his home for Bay City, Michi- 
gan, where he studied civil engineering under 
the preceptorship of Andrew Huggins. Before 
this he had pursued studies along this line at 
home, and was therefore able to make rapid 
progress, soon becoming Mr. Huggins' assist- 
ant. He continued with that gentleman for 
one year, then formed a partnership with Wil- 



466 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



liam Mercer in civil engineering and sur\-eying, 
which continued until Mr. Dunbar was ap- 
pointed superintendent of construction of the 
Avater-works system of Bay City in January, 
1872. He had charge of the construction of 
all the buildings and the installing of the 
machinery, and has superintended the laying of 
all the mains throughout the city and in all 
the additions to the present time. The "Holley" 
■system has been completely installed. There 
are 50 miles of pipe laid and the plant has a 
■capacity of 10,000,000 gallons per day. Mr. 
Dunbar has also served as secretary of the 
Water -Board since the inception of the plant. 
This is one of the best systems in the State of 
Michigan. He meets every requirement of the 
office perfectly, and has given unqualified satis- 
faction to the critical public. During all these 
years of connection with the Water-Works, he 
has also served as assistant chief of the Fire 
Department. From 1866 until 1870, he served 
as county surveyor, refusing reelection, and 
from 1870 until April, 1872, served as city 
surveyor. He is a member of the American 
Water-Works Association, attending all na- 
tional meetings; a member of the New England 
^^'ater- Works Association ; and of the Michi- 
gan Society of Civil Engineers. 

In 1870, Mr. Dunbar was united in mar- 
riage with Jennie McKay, who was born in 
Spring Arbour, Canada, and is a daughter of 
James McKay, who was a native of Scotland 
and settled at Spring Arbour, Canada, where he 
fanned until his death in 1894. Three children 
were born to them: Jessie "SI., who graduated 
from the Bay City High School and attended 
the University of Michigan, — she married 
■George B. Little, D. D. S., of Palo Alto, Cali- 
fornia, and has one son, Jean: James H.. a 
graduate of the University of Michigan, class 
of 1895, who is a civil engineer of Cleveland, 
Ohio, where he lives with his wife. Marie, and 



his daughter, Marie Elizabeth ; and Everett S., 
who is attending Leland Stanford University, 
being a member of the class of 1908 in the 
civil engineering department. Fraternally, Mr. 
Dunbar is a member of Bay City Lodge, No. 
129, F. & A. M. In politics, he has always 
been a stanch supporter of Republicans prin- 
ciples and policies. 




SCAR F. BENTLEY, who was the 
second pioneer settler of Gibson town- 
ship, Bay County, Michigan, resides 
in the town of Bentley, which was 
named iii his honor. He was born in Monroe 
County, New York, in 1833, and is a son of 
Thomas and Sarah (James) Bentley. 

Thomas Bentley was born in New York 
State and lived there many years. In 1847, 
accompanied by his wife and children, he moved 
to Michigan and located near Flint, where he 
purchased a tract of 80 acres, now known as the 
Roat farm, the second best farm in Genesee 
County. Additions were made to this prop- 
erty from time to time and the members of the 
family became large property holders. Twelve 
children were born to Thomas Bentley and his 
wife, Sarah James, and of these our subject 
is the nth in order of birth and the sole survi- 
vor at the present time. The mother died on 
the old homestead at the age of 68 years. 
Thomas Bentley formed a second marital union 
and with his wife spent his declining years on 
the farm of his son. Nelson. He died in his 
71st year. 

Oscar F. Bentley's educational training be- 
gun in the public schools of New York State, 
was completed in the schools situated in vicinity 
of Flint, Michigan. He remained on the home 
farm in Flint township, where his father and 
four brothers had cleared farms of dense forest 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



467 



and placed tliem in a tillable state, until his 
marriage in 1854. He then became a pioneer 
settler in Saginaw County, where he farmed 
until 1859. In that year he took up govern- 
ment land in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, 
antl there maintained his homestead for 12 
years, at the end of which time he moved to 
Northern Kansas and li\-ed two years. 

\MiiIe a resident ^^linnesota at the time of 
the Civil War^ he enlisted in the Union Army, 
but the outbreak of the Sioux Indians kept his 
regiment in the West. He served three years 
as a member of the Second Regiment, Minne- 
sota Vol. Cav. At the time of the New Ulm 
massacre, he resided on a farm 20 miles from 
New Ulm, and with his neighbors moved to a 
place of safety to live until the depredations 
ceased. 

Upon leaving Kansas, he returned to Gen- 
esee County, Michigan, and in April, 1887, 
made his last pioneer stand at Bentley, Gibson 
township, Bay County, where he has since 
resided. When Mr. Bentley first came here, 
he erected a large sawmill, which burned four 
years later. He rebuilt it at once and two years 
later the second mill burned. He again rebuilt 
this mill, which is now owned and operated 
by his son Frank. He has three farms, con- 
sisting of 320 acres, and is one of the substan- 
tial men of his section. 

On February 8, 1854, ^Ir. Bentley was 
married to ^Matilda Anderson and they have 
spent 51 years in happy companionship, to- 
gether braving the struggles of pioneering in 
different sections of the United States. They 
liave reared six children, as follows: Adelbert, 
born in 1855; Murray G., born in 1858, who 
married Annie Smythe and has one son, — 
Hebert M.; Perry Oliver, born in 1861, de- 
ceased October 15, 1880: Frank, born in 1863, 
the proprietor of a general store at Bentley, 



who married Cora Edmund and has one child, 
— Norma; Fred A., born in 1867, deceased in 
1899; and Effie M., born April 30, 1870, who 
died ]\Iay 2, 1894, leaving a husband, Meade 
Burlingame, and one son, — Floyd. Adelbert 
Bentley, the oldest child born to our subject 
and his wife, first married Effie Kent, by whom 
he had five children, two of whom are now 
living, namely : Alice, who married Edward 
Genreaux and has two children,— Alta and 
Walter; and Roy. Mrs. Bentley died in 1898, 
and the following year Adelbert Bentley 
formed a second union with Jane Hannah; 
four children have been born to this union : 
Nona, who died in infancy; Russell, born July 
3, 1897; Nina, born in 1899: and Stanley, born 
in 1901. 

Oscar F. Bentley has always been an un- 
swerving supporter of Republican principles, 
and takes an earnest interest in his party's suc- 
cess. He is a man of pleasing personality, and 
stands high in the regard of his fellow-citizens, 
among whom he has lived so many years. 



TRISTOPHER HEINZMANX. The 
memory of the pioneers in his State, 
— the men who made the paths 
through the wilderness and, through 
hardship and persevering industry, wrought 
out its present peace and prosperity. — must 
always be of interest to a true and patriotic 
lover of his country. The pioneers in Bay 
County are not yet so far removed from the 
]M-esent generation as to be forgotten, but there 
are those whose achievements are of more than 
usual interest. This was the case with the late 
Christopher Heinzmann, than whom Bay City 
had no more esteemed or valued citizen. He 
was born in W^n^temberg, Germany. March 13, 



468 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



1830, and was a son of Jacob and Barbara 
Heinzmann. 

In 1846 the parents of Mr. Heinzmann left 
their home in Reicheneck, Germany, and came 
to America, setthng at Ann Arbor, Michigan, 
where the father died shortly afterward; the 
mother's death occurred at a later date. Our 
subject was an intelligent, well-educated youth 
of 15 years when the family came to Michigan. 
He continued to live at Ann Arbor, learning 
the English language and becoming accus- 
tomed to American usages, until 1849, when he 
started out to make his own way. At that time 
Lower Saginaw (now Bay City) was a nucleus 
of the lumbering interests and to this place 
Christopher came in search of work and found 
it in one of the sawmills. Here he was em- 
ployed for some time, not only earning, but also 
saving his wages ; as soon as he had accumu- 
lated sufficient capital, he invested it in farming 
land which was then all wild, swampy and un- 
cleared. The mere clearing of his land was 
no great task to him as he was accustomed to 
hard work, but to any one less prepared and 
hardy, it would have seemed a difficult under- 
taking. Finally his land was cleared and well- 
cultivated and he then owned a most excellent 
farm. 

Mr. Heinzmann then embarked in a meat 
business and here again was shown the 
same steady perseverance that had previously 
brought him success. In 1854 he gave up his 
meat business and purchased a frame building 
on the corner of Saginaw and Sixth streets, 
which he fitted up as a hotel and named it the 
"Forest City House." This hostelry, which 
became justly popular on account of its excel- 
lent management, was finally destroyed by fire. 
He then bought the property on the corner of 
Washington avenue and Sixth street, refitted 
the building and named the establishment the 
"Forest City House." This hotel he success- 



fully operated until the winter of 1887, when 
he retired from an active life. These interests 
did not, however, include all his business enter- 
prises. He owned and operated both a saw and 
a grist mill for some five years, and was inter- 
ested in real estate and in building. The beau- 
tiful residence at No. 604 Columbus avenue. 
Bay City, the home of Mrs. Heinzmann, was 
erected in 1874. Here Mr. Heinzmann's life 
closed September 8, 1902. His friends were 
numerous for he possessed the kind heart and 
genial temperament of the true German. He 
was kind to the unfortunate and generous to 
the needy. 

Mr. Heinzmann was married first to Chris- 
tina Reinhardt, of Bay City, who was born in 
Germany. They had three children : Kath- 
erine, Christopher and Christina, all deceased. 
Christopher left one son, — Fred. Christina 
married Hans Baumbach, a resident of Salz- 
burg, Bay County, and they had four children : 
August, Katherine, William and Otto. Mrs. 
Heinzmann died March 3, 1881. She was a 
charter member of the Bay City German Luth- 
eran Church. 

On November 3. 1881, Mr. Heinzmann 
was married to Mrs. Margareta Sert. Mrs. 
Heinzmann was born in Madsmansdorf, Ger- 
many, September 4, 1829, and is a daughter 
of Andreas Bayer. She came to America with 
her sister and brother-in-law, George Meckler. 
They settled at Bay City in 1852 and in the fol- 
lowing year she was married to Eustace Sert, 
who was a miller by trade. After four years 
at this business in Bay City, Mr. Sert built the 
hotel at Sebewaing, Michigan, long known as 
the Sert House. Mr. Sert died November 8, 
1872, and Mrs. Sert continued to manage the 
hotel until her marriage with Mr. Heinzmann. 
Mrs. Heinzmann had three children born to 
her first union, namely : Louisa, who married 
Simon Hoffman and died six months later ; 




^ (^.a^ 









AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



471 



Alargareta, who married Myron Tuttle and 
died September i. 1901 ; and Eustace, who 
died aged eight months. Mrs. Heinzmann is a 
very highly esteemed lady. She is very charit- 
able and is one of the charter members of the 
Bay City German Lutheran Church. 



EV. THOMAS RAFTER, whose por- 
trait accompanies this sketch, has 
been pastor of St. James' Catholic 
Church, of Bay City, Michigan, for 
a period of 32 years and is a man dearly be- 
loved by his congregation, among whom he 
has labored so faithfully. It was under his 
direction that the handsome church edifice was 
erected and it was under his guidance that the 
congregation has grown to its present large 
proportions. 

Father Rafter was born in Monroe County, 
Michigan, in 1846, and is a son of William 
Rafter, a pioneer of this State; both of his 
parents are now deceased. His educational 
training was received at Montreal College, and 
at Louvain University, Belgium. He was or- 
dained to the priesthood in Belgium, in 1869, 
and filled his first pastorate at Fenton. Michi- 
gan, where he remained two years. In 1873, 
he came to Bay City, where he has since re- 
mained. He is assisted by Rev. J. J. Walsh, a 
native of Grand Rapids, jMichigan. The latter 
received his theological education and train- 
ing in Montreal College and came to St. James' 
Church in 1902. Father Rafter was appointed 
dean in 1903, his deanery embracing several 
counties. 

The history of St. James' Church is a most 
interesting one. Catholic missionaries visited 
the Saginaw Valley in their religious work as 
early as 1829, at a time when the settlement 
was composed mainly of French. Prior to 

26 



1848, Lower Saginaw (now Bay City) was 
visited only occasionally by priests from vari- 
ous other localities of the State, mainly from 
Flint and Detroit. Father Kundig and Louis 
and Father Peter Kindekens (the vicar-general 
of the diocese) made frequent visits during 
the period from 1848 to 1852. Father Min- 
ayhan, of Flint, also made occasional visits to 
what is now the city of Saginaw ; and on most 
occasions had a Frenchman or Indian paddle 
him down the river to Lower Saginaw. These 
were gerat events for the people of the valley, 
who would gather and eagerly watch the ap- 
proach of the priest in his canoe, carefully 
holding the vestments and altar vessels. Some- 
times the trip would be made in the winter, by 
sledge over the frozen waters of the Saginaw 
River. Father Joseph Kindekens, brother of 
Father Peter, and Father Kilroy, formerly of 
St. Clair County, had charges among the Cath- 
olics of the valley. In 1848, there were but 
eight families here, mostly French, and in 
1851, 14 families. During 1850 and 1851, 
the Catholics of Lower Saginaw built of native 
timber, which they procured from the woods, 
a church on Washington street below Second. 
Rev. H. J. H. Schutjes arrived in 1852 and 
assumed charge. He had great difficulties 
with which to contend, as the church was not 
only in its infancy, but no place was provided 
as the pastoral residence. He chiefly lived at 
the old Wolverton House, and the remainder 
of the time was the guest of some friend. In- 
cluded in his charge was the entire Saginaw 
Valley, and this necessitated frequent trips, 
which were quite hazardous and difficult of ac- 
complishment, as there were no roads at that 
time. He was relieved of a part of his charge 
in 1863, when pastors were secured for Sagi- 
naw and East Saginaw. His parishioners' 
included Hollanders, Germans, French and 
those speaking English, and this made it nee- 



472 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



essary for him to speak several languages. In 
1868, a new church was erected on the site 
•of the present St. James Church by the Eng- 
lish-speaking portion of the parish and was 
•dedicated under the patronage of St. James 
the Apostle. In 1873. Father Schutjes was 
called to Detroit to assist the Bishop, and Rev. 
Thomas Rafter became his successor in May 
of that year. 

Up to 1868, no service for the Catholics 
was held in any church except in the old 
St. Joseph's Church which was situated on 
Washington street below Second. In 1868 
the St. James' Church which occupied the site 
of the present edifice, was dedicated for the 
English-speaking Catholics living on both sides 
of the river. In 1873, St. Mary's congrega- 
tion was formed and a church built, which was 
attended by all the Catholics of the West Side. 
In 1874 the Germans and Poles began the 
building of churches for themselves, which 
were completed in 1875. In 1884 the Hol- 
landers of Essexville and the surrounding 
country, as well as the French of the same ter- 
ritory, erected a church for themselves. The 
German church is located on Lincoln avenue, 
and this congregation is now building a splen- 
did convent known as the Holy Rosary, one of 
the finest brick buildings in Bay City. There 
are now eight churches in Bay City and West 
Bay City, all with large congregations. 

The St. James' Parochial School was begun 
by Father Schutjes and completed by Father 
Rafter, and was then taken in charge of by 
the Sisters of Charity, from Cincinnati, in Sep- 
tember. 1873. It has 12 grades and is at- 
tended by nearly 500 pupils. The old St. 
James' Church was a frame building and was 
replaced by a brick edifice, the corner-stone of 
Avhich was laid in June, 1885. It was dedi- 
•cated by its pastor on Christmas Day of 1886, 
and opened for services. It has a seating 



capacity of 1,400. The beautiful brick resi- 
dece adjoining the church on the east was 
erected in 1902, and in June of the following 
year Father Rafter took up his residence there. 
Under his direction, five societies were organ- 
ized in connection with the church work, 
namely : The Catholic Mutual Benefit Asso- 
ciation, Altar Society, Young Ladies' Society, 
Children of Mary and St. Vincent de Paul 
Society. The English-speaking Catholics of 
Bay City are e.xceedingly fortunate in that 
they have had but two pastors, both of high 
character and scholarly attainments, during 
the 52 years existence of the church here. 




ILLIA}.! ELISHA CROSBY CAL- 
LEXDER. one of Bay City's 
prominent, influential and esteemed 
citizens, was born at Fayette, Ohio, 
November 1 1, 1836, and is a son of James and 
Catherine (Maxwell) Callender. 

The Callender family is of Scotch extrac- 
tion; both William and Polly Callender, our 
subject's grandparents, were natives of the 
Highlands of Scotland. The grandfather came 
to America when a lad of 13 years and located 
first in Fayette County, Ohio, and in 1836 set- 
tled in Williams County, Ohio, taking up 1.380 
acres of land after he had grown to manhood. 
He served in the War of 1812 and lived until 
1 85 1, being then more than 60 years old. 

James Callender, the father of our subject, 
was born November 10, 1813, in Fayette 
County, Ohio, but he subsequently moved to 
\\'illiams County, where he owned a large 
farm. , Like his father, he was a loyal Ameri- 
can citizen and enlisted for service in the Mexi- 
can War. He was a great admirer of General 
Jackson and was an ardent supporter of the 
principles of the old-time Democratic party. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



473 



His marriage with Catherine Maxwell, a 
daughter of Ephraim and Catherine (ISIoore) 
Maxwell, resulted in the establishing of a happy 
home and the birth of a family of nine children, 
seven of whom reached maturity, namely : 
William E. C, of this sketch; Isabella, a resi- 
dent of Newaygo County, Michigan, who first 
married Jeremiah Greene and is now the widow 
of Mr. Duffy; Angeline, a resident of Defiance, 
Ohio, who is the widow of Samuel Jones ; 
James, a resident of Newaygo County, ]Michi- 
gan ; John, who lives in Defiance County, Ohio ; 
Rachel, who is the wife of Peter Camp, of De- 
Kalb County, Indiana ; and George, a resident 
of Edgerton, Ohio. The parents of this family 
were worthy members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. 

The boyhood and early youth of our subject 
were passed in a secluded part of Williams 
County, where he had absolutely no educa- 
tional advantages, and was 21 years of age 
before he left home to seek opportunities in 
some other section. After living for a time 
in Summit County, Ohio, and making rapid 
progress in an educational way, he decided to 
study law, and with this end in view he entered 
the law department of Hudson Seminary, at 
Hudson, Ohio, in January. 1861. The break- 
ing out of the Civil \\'ar, a few months later, 
changed the course of his life, in that it inter- 
rupted his education and entirely changed his 
point of view. 

Mr. Callender enlisted in April, 1861, for a 
three-months service, under the name of Wil- 
liam C. Callender, as a relative, William E. 
Callender, was already in the service. Since the 
war, howe\er, he has written his name "Wil- 
liam E." After the expiration of his first 
term, he reenlisted. entering Company B, Sixth 
Regt., United States Cavalry, in which he 
continued until 1863. when he was transferred 
to the Ninth Ohio Battery. During his long 



term of service, which closed July 6, 1865, he 
won the esteem of both officers and comrades 
for all those qualities which go to make up a 
good soldier, and, when taken prisoner, he was 
a party to one of the most thrilling escapes that 
the long history of old Libby Prison has con- 
tributed to history. A natural mechanic, he 
had not endured much of his three weeks' im- 
prisonment, before he had formulated a plan 
for escape, which proved practical, and was one 
of that famous number of captives who so 
wonderfully dug their way in the direction of 
freedom, although he. as '-'Jim Haggerty," 
with Major Anderson and one other fortunate 
prisoner, were the only ones who succeeded in 
getting away. 

After his return from the war and recupera- 
tion from its many hardships. Mr. Callender 
turned his attention to learning a trade, having 
as stated, a natural inclination toward mechan- 
ics. He became a good carpenter and very 
soon was able to command a journeyman's 
wages, although he had never served an ap- 
prenticeship. He worked on at Edgerton, 
Ohio, in this line until 1867, when he accepted 
a railroad position and until 1869 was a freight 
brakeman and later a conductor on the Michi- 
gan Central Railroad. This brought him into 
touch with Bay City, where in the latter year 
he saw a fair opening for work at his trade. 
The climate, however, proved too bracing for 
^Irs. Callender and they returned to Ohio. 
In 1870 he came back to Bay City and resumed 
carpenter work, for other parties, in which he 
continued until 1873, when he went into busi- 
ness for himself. He carried on a very satis- 
factory business for some years and then failing 
health warned him to give up so active a life. 
During his years of business success, he had 
made a specialty of millwright work and, out- 
side of other work, he built in the Saginaw 
Valley 152 drill-houses, some 10 salt-blocks 



474 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and a number of mills. His skill and work- 
manship were highly valued and the results of 
his industry in this line may be seen in Bay 
and the adjoining counties. 

In 1867, Mr. Callender was united in mar- 
riage with Martha Prentice, who is a daughter 
of John Prentice, a representative citizen of 
Williams County, Ohio, who had come origin- 
ally from the neighborhood of Syracuse, New 
York. Three children were born to them, the 
two who reached maturity being : Emma, now 
deceased, who married Charles Nicholas and 
had three children, — Pearl, Ada and Roy ; and 
Russell, a resident of Bay City, who married 
Pearl Guly, and they have two children, — 
Theodore and Helen. 

Politically, Mr. Callender has long been a 
power in Bay City. He is a Republican of the 
stamp known as "dyed in the wool," and he 
has been chairman of the ward committee of 
the Sixth Ward for the past 24 years. When 
he entered into this connection, the ward was 
largely Democratic, but it is now just as nota- 
bly Republican, and general credit is given our 
subject for this marked change in opinion. 
For a number of years past he has been a city 
magistrate and has been called upon to officiate 
in many very complicated and important cases. 
When his name for the position of justice of 
the peace was first advanced, it was in a conven- 
tion from which he was absent on account of 
illness. He happened into the convention 
hall just as his candidacy was announced. It 
was an unpleasant surprise to him as he knew 
the ward was of an opposite political complex- 
ion, and it was with some difficulty that his 
friends prevailed upon him to permit his name 
to be used. Just here is where his personal 
popularity came in, for, as he genially remarks, 
"with the expenditure of just five cents" he 
was elected to the honorable office by a major- 
ity of 348 votes. To this office he has been 



twice reelected. He has served the people 
justly and well. On account of his excellent 
judgment and unswerving impartiality, he has. 
won the approval of his fellow citizens of both 
parties. Few of his decisions have ever been 
reversed. His record is one in which to take 
a just amount of priile, and he appreciates the 
confidence and esteem in which he is univer- 
sally held. 

For many years Mr. Callender has been a 
believer of Presbyterian doctrines, but is not 
a member of that church. His wife belongs to 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. His frater- 
nal connections include the U. S. Grant Post, 
No. 67, G. A. R., and Union Veteran Legion, 
and also the Ancient Order of United Work- 
men. He is in active membership with Bay 
City Lodge, No. 129, F. & A. M. For the 
past 25 years has been a member of Eden 
Lodge, No. 260, I. O. O. F., and for 15 years 
has belonged to the Grand Lodge. In these 
various bodies he is known all over the State. 




LBERT ZUBE, the owner of a well- 
improved and valuable farm of 80 
acres situated in section 4, township 
13, range 6, in Portsmouth township. 
Bay County, Michigan, was born in Stettin, 
Germany, May 9, 1855, and is a son of John 
and Matilda (Erke) Zube. 

The father of Mr. Zube was also born in 
Stettin and now resides in Bay City, aged ~t, 
years. The mother was a native of Prussia 
and died at Bay City, in 1884, at the age of 
45 years. They had 13 children, our subject 
being the eldest, and nine of the family still 
survive. 

Albert Zube was 10 years old when his par- 
ents came to Bay City, in 1865, and he has re- 
mained a resident of Bay County ever since. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



475 



At the age of 13 years he left school and went 
to work and was employed for nine years in the 
sawmill of Gates & Fay, of Bay City, and for 
10 years was employed in the foundry of 
Smalley Brothers. In 1S82, Mr. Zube came to 
to his present farm of 80 acres, in section 4, 
Portsmouth township, all of which property at 
that time was heavily timbered. Since then he 
has cleared off all but 20 acres and has all the 
cleared portion under a fine state of cultivation. 
In addition to conducting general farming oper- 
ations, he runs a feed-mill and a threshing- 
machine, a corn-husker and wood-sawing ma- 
chine, being one of the progressive men of his 
locality. He believes in modern methods and 
improved machinery and has the ability to 
carry on these various employments in connec- 
tion with his agricultural work, making his life 
a busy one all through the year. 

In 1876, Mr. Zube was married to Alvina 
Martzinkey, who was born in Prussia, Ger- 
many. December 8, 1858, and is a daughter of 
Christian and Reika (Martzinkey) Martzin- 
key. She came to America in 1872 wilh her 
father and brother. Mr. and Mrs. Zube have 
had 12 children: Fred, who died aged three 
months ; Tracey, who died aged eight years ; 
Bernhardt, who died aged six years ; Edelia, 
who died aged five weeks; and Mary, Martha, 
Laura, Arena, Emma, William, Freda and 
Lily, who are at home. Mr. Zube has given 
his children all the advantages in his power and 
they have grown up intelligent and useful. 

Mr. Zube has always been a Republican in 
his political convictions and has held a number 
of the local offices. He is a leading member of 
the German Lutheran Church and one of the 
trustees of the Triple Alliance Church. He is a 
man who enjoys a large measure of respect in 
his neighborhood and has a wide circle of warm 
personal friends, who admire him for his 
honesty and his many fine qualities. 




ENRY CLARK, one of the prosper- 
ous farmers of Merritt township. Bay 
County, Michigan, owning a well- 
developed farm of 80 acres, in sec- 
tion 34, was born in Frontenac County, near 
Kingston, Ontario, Canada, July 22, 1855, and 
is a son of John and Katie (Hogan) Clark. 

The father of our subject was born in Ver- 
mont and the mother in Ontario. They spent 
their last years at Bay City, where the father 
died aged 80 years and the mother, aged 72 
years. They had nine children : James, a 
physician, of Bay City; Mary (Mrs. Sleeth), 
who died in Ontario ; Jane, a teacher, who died 
at Bay City ; Clara, of Bay City ; John ^^'esley, 
an attorney-at-law, living in Virginia; Henry, 
of this sketch; Katie (Mrs. Smith), of Chi- 
cago; Bethuel, a farmer living in Ontario; 
Olive (Mrs. Balls), of Ontario, and one de- 
ceased. 

Henry Clark was reared on his father's 
farm and was educated in the local schools. 
He carried on farming in Ontario until about 
1888, when he came to Bay County. After 
spending one year at Bay City, he purchased 
his present farm of 80 acres, one-half of which 
had been cleared. The remainder has been 
cleared and all has been put under a fine state 
of cultivation. Mr. Clark has taken a great 
deal of interest in his property and has made it 
very attractive by improving and adorning it. 
He enjoys the comforts of a fine home and his 
surroundings are such as to indicate thrift and 
good management. 

In July, 1S95, I\Ir. Clark was married to 
Katie Whiteside, who was born September 15, 
1873, in Merritt township, and is a flaughter 
of Robert and Lovina (Maxson) Whiteside, 
the former of whom was born in Ireland and 
the latter in New York. They were early pio- 
neers, coming to the site of Bay City in 1848. 
Mr. Whiteside passed away at the age of 73 



476 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



years, liut his widow still survives, a much 
esteemed resident of West Bay City. ^Ir. 
and Mrs. Clark have two children, — Henry 
and Fay. Mr. Clark is a supporter of the 
principles and candidates of the Republican 
party. He and his wife attend and take an 
active interest in the Presbyterian Church at 
Munger. 




UGUST BUBLITZ, one of the first- 
class citizens and good farmers of 
Portsmouth township, who owns 
1 60 acres of well-improved land in 
section 5, township 13, range 6, was born May 
30, 1849, i'"' Moravia, West Prussia, Germany, 
and is a son of Charles and Louisa (Redmond) 
Bublitz. 

The parents of Mr. Bublitz were worthy, 
industrious Germans, who reared a family of 
six children in comfort on the home estate, 
which consisted of about 100 acres of land. 
Both died in Germany. Their three sons and 
three daughters were as follows : August, who 
is the eldest ; Charles, of Merritt township ; 
Louisa (Mrs. Schenck), of Alerritt township: 
and Augusta, Frederick and Caroline, who 
live in Germany. 

August Bublitz came to .\merica in 1872, 
locating at Bay City where he worked as a 
laborer for atout eight years. He then bought 
the tract of wild land which he has transformed 
into a valuable, producti\'e farm. All these 
cultivated fields were then co\'ered with a heavy 
growth of timber, which was speedily cleared 
ofif through Air. Bublitz' own energy and in- 
dustry. He has made many improvements, the 
family home being a very comfortalile resi- 
dence and three substantial barns testifying to 
the bountiful harvests yielded by his land. 
The changes made here are wonderful and 
reflect the greatest credit upon Air. Bublitz. 



In 1878, Mr. Bublitz married Anna Behm- 
lenter, who was born in 1859 in Bay County, 
and is a daughter of Paul and Kate (Siegler) 
Behmlenter. natives of Germany. When the 
parents of Mrs. Bublitz came to Bay City 
there were only three houses here. They 
located on the West Side and there reared a 
family of 11 children, the wife of our subject 
being the sixth in order of birth. 

Mr. and Mrs. Bublitz have had 10 chil- 
dren, as follows : Charles, now in the State of 
Washington ; \\'illiam, engaged in the lumber 
business, who lives at home; Frederick, of 
Decatur, Illinois; and Clara, Albert, Hugo, 
Henry, Edward, John and Louis, who are 
living at home. The family belong to the 
German Lutheran Church. Mr. Bublitz never 
received any portion of the family estate in 
Germany, and he is entitled to much praise for 
what he has accomplished by his own efforts. 
He is one of the well-known and highly re- 
spected men of Portsmouth township. 




ILLIAAI AI. ROSS, deceased, who 
was for many years a wholesale 
lumber dealer in Bay City, Michi- 
gan, was born in Rosshire, Scot- 
land, January 10, 1838. and was a son of Dun- 
can and Katherine (McPherson) Ross. 

Duncan Ross was a hotel-keeper and a 
farmer and stock-raiser in Rosshire for a long 
period. He emigrated to Chatham, Ontario, 
with his family, and was there engaged in farm- 
ing until his death. 

The subject of this sketch grew up in Can- 
ada, whence at an early age he went to Vir- 
ginia, where he was employed for a short time 
in a shipyard. He subsequently moved to De- 
troit, Michigan, and there worked as a ship 
carpenter. Xext he located at Bay City, where 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



477 



he was engaged in the real estate business for 
several years. In 1872 he moved to Caseville, 
■where he resided four years and built a saw- 
mill. He moved th.e sawmill, in 1876, to Bay 
City and sold it in order to engage in the whole- 
sale lumber trade. In his business relations, as 
in the walks of private life, he bore an irre- 
proachable reputation and was widely re- 
spected. 

Politically, he acted with the Republican 
party, and his religious views led him to attend 
the Presbyterian Church. 

In 1868, Mr. Ross married Abbie Case, a 
daughter of Osborne Case, of Cleveland, Ohio. 
Four children were the result of this union, of 
whom John Case Ross, of Bay City, is the only 
one now living. 




ON. ALEXANDER ZAGELMEYER, 

a prominent citizen of Bay City, 
^Michigan, is at present county treas- 
urer of Bay County. He was born in 
Saginaw, jMichigan, October 28, 1858, and is a 
son of Louis and Paulina (Grahlow) Zagel- 
meyer, natives of Germany. 

Louis Zagelmeyer, who was born in Ger- 
many. January 31, 1825, was for many years 
engaged in the lime business. He came to 
America in 1850 and settled in Saginaw, Mich- 
igan, in 1852, having spent two years in New 
York City. On arriving at Saginaw, he was 
employed as clerk in a store, where he remained 
a year and a half. He then engaged in the 
manufacture of vinegar, and subsequently 
cleared a farm. In 1866 he located at West 
Bay City and opened a lime kiln, and in 1875 
organized the Marine Ice Company, which 
afterward passed into the hands of his sons. 
He was treasurer of the town of Bangor the 
year previous to its being merged into the cor- 
poration of West Bay City. During his last 



years he lived a retired life, dying June 15, 
1898, at the age of "j}^ years. 

Alexander Zagelmeyer received his early 
mental training in the public schools of West 
Bay City, and when a young man learned from 
his father all about the lime business. In this 
he was associated with his father until 1879, 
and during the last three years of the partner- 
ship the large ice concern before mentioned was 
organized. Of this he took charge, in connec- 
tion with his brother Frank. In the spring of 
1887, the Bay County Ice Company was incor- 
porated, being a merger of the ]\Iarine Ice 
Company, the Bay City Ice Company and the 
Union Ice Company, and our subject as secre- 
tary and treasurer of the company proceeded 
to revolutionize the methods of operation then 
in vogue. It is the only concern dealing in lake 
ice in the Saginaw Valley, and has the largest 
ice plant in the State, having a capacity of 
40,000 tons. Its product is in demand both 
winter and summer, and is shipped extensively 
to points in ^Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. The 
Bay County Ice Company has its office, ice 
depot and barn at tlie foot of Center avenue, 
Bay City. 

Alexander Zagelmeyer has been truly 
termed the father of the coal industry in Bay 
County. What the development of coal fields 
means to a community has been demonstrated 
in Bay City in recent years. Not only is the 
coal industry of great \-alue by reason of the 
employinent it gives to hundreds of men and 
the cheap fuel furnished the citizens, but also 
as an inducement to factories to locate in the 
vicinity and benefit by the decreased cost of 
production. Bay City for many years was 
dependent upon her forests for fuel and the 
sawmills were the basis of her prosperity, but 
as the pine in this section grew more scarce, it 
became apparent that the city would experience 
a set-back unless fuel could be procured more 



478 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



cheaply than by transportation from Ohio and 
Pennsylvania coal fields. As early as 1861 
a vein of coal was discovered in the county 
while drilling a salt-well, and frequently after- 
ward various parties discovered veins, but 
owing to the plentiful supply of pine nothing 
in the way of mining was undertaken. It re- 
mained for Mr. Zagelmeyer, in August, 1894, 
to set in motion the wheels of what to-day is 
the most important of Bay County's industries. 
At his suggestion, four prominent citizens ac- 
companied him to the sawmill of Zill Brothers. 
five miles west of West Bay City, in Monitor 
township, where coal had been discovered in 
drilling a well. These gentlemen secured a 
lease, although others had failed in an attempt 
at leasing the property, and a company was 
organized for the purpose of testing the land. 
On June 18, 1895, they commenced sinking a 
shaft which was completed in October and has 
been in active operation ever since. They had 
many obstacles with which to contend, as oper- 
ations were begun at a time of panic and it was 
hard to interest capital. In fact public preju- 
dice was so great that the operators often met 
with ridicule and sometimes persecution. With 
greater hindrance than encouragement from 
the public, they persevered and had the satis- 
faction of seeing their efforts crowned with 
success. In the spring of 1895, the Monitor 
Coal Company was incorporated with a capital 
stock of $50,000 and the following officers : 
Alexander Zagelmeyer, president ; George Pen- 
niman, vice-president ; E. L. Mather, secretary ; 
Frank Zagelmeyer. treasurer. These officers 
with Christ. Heinzmann form the board of 
directors. The C(_impany has a daily capacity 
of 300 tons, and is about to sink another shaft 
in the immediate vicinity. Thus was the Moni- 
tor coal mine started as the first in Bay County. 
In a review of the development of the coal 
fields of ^Michigan, a prominent writer has this 



to say of our subject: "I wish to say in this 
connection that the people of Bay County owe 
Alexander Zagelmeyer a debt of gratitude that 
it is difficult to repay. He not only started the 
coal development, but it was also through his 
personal efforts that the North American 
Chemical Company decided to locate their 
American plant in Bay City." 

The Bay Coal Mining Company, of which 
Mr. Zagelmeyer is secretary, and general man- 
ager, was organized March 16, 1896, with 
a capital of $50,000, and is now controlled by 
the North American Chemical Company. The 
mine is located across the road from the Moni- 
tor mine, on a branch of the Michigan Central 
Railroad, and has a producing capacity of 400 
tons per day. The subject of this sketch is 
also president of the Zagelmeyer Coal Mining 
Company, with mines in Jackson County, Ohio. 

Mr. Zagelmeyer was also instrumental in 
organizing the Michigan Vitrified Brick Com- 
pany, which was incorporated April 15, 1904, 
with a capital stock of $75,000. The officers 
of the organization were : Alexander Zagel- 
meyer, president ; Frank Zagelmeyer, vice-pres- 
ident : E. L. Mather, secretary ; and C. W. 
Stiver, treasurer. In 1905 C. W. Stiver re- 
signed as treasurer, and E. L. Mather assumed 
the duties of the offices of secretary and treas- 
urer. This has been the only change in the 
personnel of the company. Immediately after 
the company was organized, it purchased the 
property known as the Dutch Creek cnal mine, 
located atout four miles southwest of Bay City, 
on the west side of the river, in Frankenlust 
township. The Pierce Dry Pressed Brick 
Company was also acquired at this time. The 
company then constructed a plant for the manu- 
facture of vitrified paving brick, the only one 
of its kind in the county. It has a capacity of 
from 50,000 to 70,000 brick a day, and can 
also produce daily, in addition, 25,000 dry 




FRANK T. WOODWOKTH 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



481 



pressed building brick. In 1905, Mr. Mather 
became treasurer of the company, and in addi- 
tion holds the office of secretary. The com- 
pany mines its own fire clay and sha5e, also the 
coal to burn clay, all from the same mine. 
About 50 men are employed. 

Politically, Mr. Zagelmeyer has always 
teen loyal to the Republican party and has 
served as delegate to its State and county con- 
ventions. In public life, he has served as 
alderman of West Bay City and was one of the 
five commissioners that built the present water- 
works plant of West Bay City on the bay shore, 
which cost upwards of $200,000. For three 
years he was supervisor of the Fifth Ward, 
and was comptroller of West Bay City two 
years. He was elected to the State Legislature 
in 1888, and served during 1889 and 1890, 
being a member of the committee on fisheries 
and others of minor importance. He is one 
of the directors of the Board of Trade of Bay 
City, and is interested in the German-Ameri- 
can Sugar Company, of which he was tlie first 
president. He was elected to his present office 
of county treasurer by the largest vote ever 
polled for this office, — an indication of the pop- 
ular estimation of his merits. 

On April 3, 1881, Alexander Zagelmeyer 
was married in West Bay City to Emma Bren- 
ner, of Saginaw, Michigan. Four children re- 
sulted from their union, namely : Alma, wife 
of Charles F. Kuhlow, deputy county treasurer ; 
Eddie, Leona and Dorothy. The family resi- 
dence is an elegant home located on the corner 
of Ninth and Henry streets. West Bay City. 
Fraternally, our subject is a member of the 
Salzl)urg Arbeiter Society; the Arion Society 
of Bay City ; is a 32nd degree Mason, a Knight 
Templar, a member of Moslem Temple of the 
Mystic Shrine in Detroit; the Royal Arcanum; 
the Knights of Pythias; and the Elks of Bay 
Citv. 



1903. 



RANK T. WOODWORTH, who at 
the present writing officiates as 
mayor of Bay City, Michigan, was 
elected to this office in the spring of 

Aside from his municipal functions, he 



is prominently identified with the lumber in- 
dustry, in which he has long been largely in- 
terested, having entered upon the manufacture 
of lumber in this vicinity in 1882. 

Mr. Woodworth is a native of New York, 
where he was born on a farm in Seneca County 
in 1 861. His father was a soldier during the 
Civil War, in which he served in the 44th 
Regiment, New York Vol. Inf., and was killed 
in the battle of the Wilderness. His mother 
still lives in the State of New York. There the 
son, deprived of a father's guidance in his in- 
fancy, grew up to boyhood, attending school, 
and at intervals making himself useful in vari- 
ous ways until he was 15 years old. At that 
period he left home to join an uncle, D. C. 
Smiley, a prominent business man of Bay City 
for many years. Arriving here in 1876, he 
became a member of Mr. Smiley's household 
and attended school for several years, complet- 
ing his educational training in the Bay City 
High School. 

The first practical experience of Mr. 
Woodworth was as an employee of the Second 
National Bank of Bay City, where he served 
in a clerical capacity for about four years. 
After leaving tlie b;ink, he went into the saw- 
mill and lumber business. This venture later 
developed into the firm of F. T. Woodworth 
& Company, under which style the affairs of 
tlie concern arc still conducted. In 1902 the 
manuafcturing feature of the business was 
abandoned, the mills having been disposed of, 
and the firm now deals in lumber, etc. 

In addition to his lumber interests, Mr. 
Woodworth is engaged in the coal trade with 
the Robert Gage Coal Company, of St. Charles, 



482 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Saginaw County, ]Michigan, and is also con- 
nected with the Auburn Coal Company. He 
occupies convenient offices in the Shearer 
Block. 

Although not an aggressive politician, ]Mr. 
Woodworth is a stanch Republican and enjoys 
the full confidence of the local leaders of his 
party. His administration of municipal affairs 
is conceded by all to be honest and judicious. 

Fraternally, Air. Woodworth is affiliated 
with the B. P. O. E. His religious views are 
in harmony with the Presbyterian denomina- 
tion. 

The subject of this sketch is happily mar- 
ried and in the home circle of his comfortable 
residence in Bay City the family's friends find 
agreeable entertainment. His portrait accom- 
panies this sketch. 






1LLIA:\I J. WARD. One of the 
most noticeable farms of Merritt 
township. Bay County, Michigan, 
because of its many excellent im- 
provements, is the extensive estate owned by 
^^'■illiam J. Ward, consisting of 200 acres of 
finely cultivated land, in sections 31 and 32. 
The 40-acre tract in section 32, where Mr. 
W'ard resides, is improved with fine buildings 
and most attractive surroundings that testify 
to the good taste of the residents. Mr. Ward 
was born at Collingwood, Ontario, Canada. 
January 17, 1858, and is a son of James S. and 
Ann (Ritchie) Ward. 

James S. Ward was born in Durham, Eng- 
land, December 26, 18 18, and died at Munger, 
Michigan, June 30, 1901, aged 82 years. He 
emigrated from England to Ontario, with his 
wife and two children, in 1855, and two chil- 
dren were born in Ontario and one after he 
had removed to Bav Citv. Earlv in manhood 



he had worked as a blacksmith and as a farmer 
and for a number of years he had been a clerk 
in a postoffice in England. In i860 he removed 
with his family to Bay County, Michigan, and 
in 1862 he took up title from the government 
to 40 acres of the present farm of our subject. 

The mother of our subject was born No- 
vember 27, 1820. in ^Montrose, Scotland, and 
has survived many of her kindred and old asso- 
ciates. It is difficult to think that this intelli- 
gent, active lady has really passed her 84th 
milestone. She has had many interesting ex- 
periences in life and her remarkable memory 
makes their recital very interesting. She was 
in Paris during the revolution of 1848 which 
dethroned Louis Philippe, and witnessed the 
burning of the palace and as mementoes has 
some bits of cloth from the king's furniture. 
Mrs. Ward not only was a careful mother of 
five children, but was also a capable house- 
keeper and carried on the first dressmaking 
establishment in Bay City. She was the envied 
owner of one of the first three sewing machines 
ever brought to the place. It is still kept by 
our subject and is an interesting object. It is a 
"Singer" and its last patented improvements 
bear the date of May 30, 1854. The children 
of Mr. and Mrs. Ward were : James R., editor 
of the Green County Record, of Greensburg, 
Kentucky; Mary Ann (Histed), deceased; 
Robert W., editor of the Roscommon A'czcs, of 
Roscommon, Michigan: Louisa L. (Blodgett), 
of Munger, with whom the \'enerable mother 
resides; and William J., of this sketch. 

^Villiam J. Ward devotes his large acreage- 
to grain, hay and stock and is an extensive 
farmer in all these lines. He has made the fine 
improvements here, which, as mentioned, make 
this one of the attractive homes of the town- 
ship. In 1900 he had the misfortune to have- 
bis fine barn, 40 by 60 feet in dimensions, and 
large cattle sheds destroved bv fire, occasioned' 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



483. 



by a stroke of lightning, with a total loss of 
$3,000. What made the loss total was that the 
Cooperative Insurance Company, which carried 
his risks, failed just at this inopportune time. 
In 1902 he completed his present great barn, 
which is 40 by 90 feet in dimensions with 20- 
foot posts, — one of the most substantial struct- 
ures in the locality. 

^Ir. Ward was married December 27. 1887, 
to i\Iargaret Hodgson, who was born at Fort 
St. Henry, Canada, 50 miles below Montreal, 
June I, i860, and is a daughter of John and 
]Mary (Ray) Hodgson. She came to Bay 
County in 1884. j\lr. and Mrs. Ward have 
four children living, namely: Joseph H., Anna 
Bell, Marion Grace and Helen Beatrice. The 
first son and eldest child, James Ray, died aged 
two years. 

Politically. ]Mr. Ward affiliates wiUi the 
Republican party. He is one of the township's 
leading men and at present is filling the office 
of school treasurer, and for many years has 
aided in directing public-spirited movements 
here and in lending his influence to every move- 
ment calculated to benefit his section. Person- 
ally he is a man of business integrity and is 
held in great esteem by those who ha\-e known 
him all his life. 




l!)SIAH LITTLE A^IBROSE, U. D., 
who has a substantial medical prac- 
tice in Bay City, and holds the office 
of county physician, was born in Lee 
County, Illinois, September 16, 1857. He is 
a son of George H. and Elizabeth ]\I. T. (Lit- 
tle) Ambrose, pioneer settlers at Amboy, Lee 
County, when that district was a wilderness. 
The father died in 1884, and the mother passed 
away at the home of her son, Josiali, in 1904. 
They were the parents of five children, namely : 



Mary, of Chicago, Illinois, deceased ; George, 
of Bay City, ex-city comptroller, deceased; 
Charles, of Bay City; Mrs. Walter D. Young, 
of Bay City ; and Josiah Little. 

The sul)ject of this article received his pri- 
mary mental instruction at Evanston, Illinois, 
and graduated from the University of Michi- 
gan in the class of 1880, with the degree of Ph. 
B. He afterwards entered Rush Medical Col- 
lege, in Chicago, from which he graduated in 
the class of 1883, with the degree of M. D. 
While in Chicago, he took a special course of 
study in eye, ear, nose and throat diseases. 

In 1883, Dr. Ambrose located in Bay City, 
where he has practiced continuously ever since. 
Soon after his arrival^ the old Bay County 
Medical Society was reorganized, Dr. Ambrose 
being one of eight young physicians who were 
instrumental in reviving it. They formed what 
was known as a "Quiz & Quest Club," which re- 
sulted in the reorganization of the medical 
society. The subject of this sketch has always 
taken an active part in the affairs of this body, 
as well as in those of the Michigan State Medi- 
cal Society. 

Aside from his extended practice. Dr. Am- 
brose has been closely identified with the im- 
provement of the city, having erected about 20 
houses here, and Ambrose street in the First 
Ward is named in his honor. He is the medical 
examiner for nearly all the old-line insurance 
companies, and for all the fraternal orders 
except the A. O. U. W. He has served as 
county physician for eight consecutive terms. 

The entrance to the office of Dr. Ambrose 
is a picture gallery, representing almost every 
play on the American stage. His main office 
is filled with a collection of pictures, calendars, 
portraits of actors and reproductions from some 
of our great artists. The Doctor has saved 
many cuts from the Chicago papers, and takes- 
delight in ornamenting his rooms with every 



484 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



nice picture that he can procure. Advertise- 
ments of all kinds are to be found hung on the 
walls. This seems to be the Doctor's hobb}'. 
Another peculiarity is that he always wears a 
silk hat, which he utilizes to carry memoranda 
of his daily work, keeping a regular diary. 

Dr. Ambrose was married to Grace S. Wil- 
kins, a native of Bay City and a graduate of the 
Bay City High School. She is a daughter of 
John H. Wilkins, a native of Philadelphia, 
who came to Bay City about 1870 and served 
as mayor of Bay City two terms and is now 
serving as chief city assessor. He formerly 
engaged in the abstract and real estate business, 
but finally disposed of those interests. The 
Doctor and his wife have one son, Charles Wil- 
kins Ambrose, who is a student in the engineer- 
ing department of the University of Michigan, 
in the second year of the course. 

Dr. Ambrose is a member of the Masonic 
order, Modern W^oodmen of America, Royal 
Arcanum, Maccabees, Royal Archers, Royal 
Neighbors, Foresters and several other frater- 
nal organizations- 




HARLES HORN, one of the well- 
known farmers of Williams town- 
ship. Bay County, Michigan, who 
owns a fine farm of 50 acres in sec- 
tion 15, was born July 6, 1848, in Prussia, and 
accompanied his brother William to America 
in 1853, when Ijtit five years old. The family 
came in sections : The father came first ; when 
he had earned enough to meet the expenses of 
the journey, the mother and infant daughter 
■came; later William and Charles made the 
trip and finally Augustus, Hiram and Louise 
joined the family in the New World. 

The parents of Mr. Horn settled first in 
Canada, where the father purchased a farm. 



but in 1863 they removed to St. Clair County, 
Michigan, where they again purchased farming 
land and still later they removed to Bay County. 
Here the mother died in the fall of 1885, in 
her 70th year, and the father in 1889, aged 80 
years. They were industrious, worthy people, 
who were respected and esteemed by their neigh- 
bors. They had 11 children, five of whom sur- 
vived them and four of whom are still living, 
viz : Augustus ; Charles ; Rosa, wife of Nelson 
Houston, of St. Clair, Michigan ; and John. 

Our subject obtained his education in Can- 
ada and remained with his father on the St. 
Clair County farm until 1865, when he came to 
Bay County. He was employed in the mills 
of Bay City until 1873, '^"d ^^h^"'' purchased the 
40-acre farm on which he resides. It formerly 
belonged to his older brother, Augustus, who 
had built a log house and had cleared up some 
four acres of the timber. Mr. Horn completed 
the clearing and made many improvements 
which have resulted in the development of 
a first-class farm. He now has 50 acres in one 
body. 

In 1875, Mr. Horn was married to Eliza- 
beth Moore, who is a daughter of Joseph and 
Eleanor (Adkin) Moore, who were born and 
married in England. When they came to 
America, these three children then composed 
their family : Catherine, who died in New 
York; James, who died in New York; and 
Sarah M.. who is the wife of Charles Vliet, of 
Oakland County. They spent two years in 
New York, during which time ]\Irs. Horn was 
born; but as two of the children died there, Mr. 
Moore decided to remove to a different climate, 
and accordingly located at Clarkson, Oakland 
County, Michigan, where seven more children 
were born. Later, Mr. and Mrs. Moore en- 
gaged in farming in Bay County. Mr. Moore, 
now in his 90th year, resides with Mr. and 
]\Irs. Horn, but Mrs. Moore died in September, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



485 



1900. when lacking but three months of being 
85 years of age. 

Mr. and j\Irs. Horn have nine children : 
Grace, who married Layton Keeler and resides 
in Houghton County, Michigan ; Eleanor, who 
married Adolph Kiehn; Earl, a school teacher 
at Bentley, who married Effie Kendall, of Ohio ; 
Gladys, wdio is a stenographer in an abstract 
office in Bay City ; Hattie, who is fitting herself 
for the position of teacher ; Rosa, who is attend- 
ing school in Bay City ; and Bernice, Georgiana 
and Effie, who are at home. This is a family of 
more than usual intelligence and ability. 

Mr. Horn belongs to neither of the old 
political parties, being in entire sympathy with 
the Prohibitionists. His influence is always 
given in the direction of temperance and moral- 
ity. He is one of the leading members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church at Auburn, and 
a man who is thoroughly respected by all who 
know him. 



SCAR \\'. BAKER, a well-known 
attorney-at-law, of Bay City, Michi- 
gan, with well-appointed offices con- 
veniently located in the Shearer 
Brothers' Block, was born in this city on Au- 
gust 30, 1879, and is a son of James H. and 
Mary Frances (Edwards) Baker. 

James H. Baker and wife still reside in 
Bay City, having come here in 1868. Mr. 
Baker has always been a prominent factor in 
politics and has served as deputy sheriff and in 
a number of minor city offices and is well- 
known in the city and throughout the county. 
His two sons are Oscar W., of this sketch, and 
James H., a business man of Chicago, Illinois. 
Oscar W. Baker attended school in Bay 
City, was graduated from the High Scliool in 
1898 and then took a commercial course in the 
Bay City Business College. During the legisla- 



tive session of 1899- 1900 he was employed by 
Lieutenant-Governor Robinson. Following this 
he spent three years at the University of Mich- 
igan, at Ann Arbor, where he was graduated 
in June, 1902, and was admitted to the bar by 
diploma. Every dollar spent in acquiring this- 
education had been earned by his own hands. 
Later he was admitted to practice in the United 
States District Court and has since practiced 
at Bay City, in association with Lee E. Joslyn. 
He has taken part in a numl^er of important 
cases and has shown marked ability and thor- 
ough comprehension of the technicalities of law 
and jurisprudence. 

Mr. Baker is very loyal to the University of 
Michigan and is an active member of the 
Alumni organization, known as the Bay City 
Alumnus Association of the University of 
Michigan, and belongs also to the Pro and Con 
Debating Society. He has many pleasant sociat 
ties in the city and possesses a personality which 
wins many friends. He was reared in the 
Baptist Church. 

Mr. Baker recently was the successful liti- 
gant in a suit brought by him in the Circuit 
Court of Bay County against the Pere Mar- 
quette Railroad Company, securing a judgment 
of upwards of $5,000. The case was a peculiar 
one and practically without parallel, and at- 
tracted wide attention. It had its beginning in 
a suit brought by his father, James H. Baker, 
as next friend, because of the minority of our 
subject, against the Flint & Pere Marquette 
Railroad Company to recover about $6,000 
damages for the loss of a limb by our subject 
in 1887, at the i ith street crossing in Bay City. 
The jury verdict in the original case in the 
Circuit Court was appealed and judgment was 
later affirmed in the Supreme Court. Later, 
suit was brought against the Pere Marquette 
Railroad Company by our subject, who claimed 
that he never received any part of the mone>- 



486 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



secured on the original verdict, one-half having 
gone to attorneys for plaintiff as the fee agreed 
upon in the case, and the other half having gone 
to the plaintiff's father, without legal authority, 
for the reason that the latter had never been 
made a legal guardian of his son and therefore 
\vas not entitled to funds paid into his hands. 
This latter suit was intended to recover one- 
half of the total amount. Our subject was ably 
represented by Lee E. Joslyn. 




EMAX HORTOX. justice of the peace 
at ]\Iunger, is probably as prominent 
a man and as highly esteemed a citi- 
zen as may be numbered among the 
residents of Merritt township, Bay County, 
Michigan, where he owns a fine farm of 80 
acres in section 29. He has devoted his ener- 
gies to the township's advancement since he 
became a resident in 1894. Mr. Horton was 
"born in Oakland County, Michigan, September 
16, 1848, and is a son of Joseph and Almira 
(Marks) Horton. 

The father of !\Ir. Horton was born in 
1808, at Lebanon, New York, and removed to 
Oakland County, Michigan, in 1835, accompa- 
nied by his wife and two children. He died on 
his farm, which he had cleared from the wilder- 
ness, at the age of 66 years. He was an intel- 
ligent, honorable and upright man, lived an 
exemplary life and left a fine property to his 
children, as well as an honorable name. He 
was a leading elder in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. The mother of our subject came also 
from an old settled New York family ; she was 
born in that State in 1810, and died in Michi- 
gan at the age of 66 years. They had eight 
children: Jane Elizabeth, wife of Dr. N. L. 
Higbie, of Elsie, Michigan ; Sarah Ann, widow 
■of Benjamin Sage, of Ypsilanti, Michigan; 



Hix, who died aged 40 years ; Mariette, wife of 
William T. Daines, of Farmington, Michigan; 
Jacob, a minister in the ]\Iethodist Episcopal 
Church, who is now settled at Ypsilanti, Michi- 
gan ; Caleb Wesley, who died aged 60 years ; 
Harriet T., widow of Rev. J. A. Mcllwain, of 
Romeo, Michigan; and Heman, of this sketch. 

Heman Horton remained on the home farm 
in Oakland County until he was 25 years of 
age and continued to attend school until he 
was 20 years old, enjoying first the advantages 
offered by the common schools and later by the 
Oakland Institute at Farmington. He contin- 
ued to farm during the summers and teach 
school during the winters for a number of 
years before he moved to Montcalm County, 
where he continued the same mode of life for 
about 14 years. Then he settled down to farm- 
ing near Troy, Oakland County, for five years, 
changing then to city life and engaging in a 
real estate business at Detroit for two years. 
Country life, however, pleased him best and in 
1894 he came to his present farm in Merritt 
township. Here he carries on a general line 
of farming and operates a large dairy business, 
having a great herd of registered Jersey cattle. 
In the past he also handled draft horses. 

In 1 87 1, ^Ir. Horton was united in mar- 
riage with Susan A. Andrews, who was born 
at West Bloomfield, Oakland County, Michi- 
gan, October 4, 1848. and is a daughter of 
Samuel and Susan (Collier) Andrews. Mr. 
Andrews was born in Connecticut and his wife 
in Massachusetts. They came to Oakland 
County in 1833. The father died at the age 
of 90 years and six months on the farm he 
had taken up from the government and cleared, 
and the mother died there aged 69 years. Mrs. 
Horton is the youngest of their eight children, 
the record being as follows : Elizabeth ( Mrs. 
Rhodes), of Allegan County, Michigan; Jane, 
widow of E. B. Frost, of Frankfort, Michigan; 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



487 



George W., who died in Oakland County at the 
age of 33 years; Nathaniel, who died aged 60 
3'ears ; Samuel F., of Grand Rapids, Michigan; 
Theodore H., of Minnesota ; Charles, of Oak- 
land County; and Susan A. (Mrs. Horton). 
Se\-en children have been born to our subject 
and wife, namely: Helen E., wife of Robert 
E. Forbush, of Oakland County; Arthur S., of 
Tacoma, Washington; K. Charles, who lives 
at home; Mark Andrews; Clara M., wife of 
E. P. Tennant, of Merritt township ; and Harry 
and Belva A., who live at home. The family 
belong to the Presbyterian Church at Munger, 
Mr. Horton being one of the trustees. 

Mr. Horton has taken a prominent part in 
township aiifairs since settling here and has 
been active in political life. He has been chair- 
man of the Republican Township Committee 
and is a justice of the peace at present. His 
acquaintance is wide and both in public and 
private life he is universally respected. He is 
justly regarded as one of the representative 
men of his section of Bay County. 




OHN CHATFIELD KERN, one of 
leaders in the great lumber interests 
of the Saginaw Valley, is president of 
the Kern Manufacturing Company, 
of West Bay City, Michigan, and a citizen of 
much prominence here. Mr. Kern was born at 
O.xford, Oakland County, Michigan, Novem- 
ber 30, 1853, and is a son of Rev. Joseph and 
Bethany Stewart (Woodhull) Kern. 

Rev. Joseph Gardner Kern was a pioneer 
in Oakland County, Michigan. He was born 
at Belvidere, New Jersey, June 20, 1821, and 
died at Morris, Michigan, August 9, 1901. 
He came to Michigan in early manhood, a 
machinist by trade, and for some years after 
his marriage, in Oxford, Oakland County, he 



operated a foundry and machine shop. While 
living at Oxford his mind became impressed 
with the truths of religion to such a degree, 
that he entered the ministry of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, becoming a member of the 
Detroit Conference. He was an earnest Chris- 
tian man and continued in the ministry until 
his health failed, in 1868, when he located on 
a farm near Perry, Michigan. Some years 
prior to his death, he removed to ISIorris and 
there his life closed, at the age of 80 years. 
On November 17, 1849, he was married to 
Bethany Stewart W^oodhull, who was torn in 
Oakland County, Michigan, November 14, 
1 83 1, and was a daughter of John C. H. and 
Rachel (Bird) Woodhull, old pioneers of that 
section. Mrs. Kern died at Perry, Michigan, 
November 16, 1869. She was a member of 
one of the oldest American families, of English 
descent. Its records reach back one thousand 
years. The founder of the family in America 
was Richard Woodhull, who was born in Eng- 
land in 1620. Our subject is in the ninth gen- 
eration from this ancestor. The two children 
of Mr. and Mrs. Kern both survive : John Chat- 
field, our subject; and a sister, Sarah Elizabeth, 
who is the wife of Richard Place, of Lansing, 
Michigan. 

Our subject's early years were spent in 
various localities in Michigan, as his father's 
different charges were filled. \\'hen three years 
of age, removal was made to Columbus, thence 
to Lake Port City, Perry and Williamson. 
Subsequently the father settled on his farm 
near Perry and there the son remained until 
he was 19 years of age. After his education 
was completed in the Corunna (Michigan) 
High School, he clerked for two years in a 
drug store at Perry, and then as collector went 
into the main office at Detroit of the C. F. 
Brooks Lumber Company, conducted by Mrs. 
C. F. Brooks, which company's mills were 



488 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



located at Bay City. He remained there until 
the otfice was closed and then came to Bay 
City, in 1876, being employed by L. L. Hotch- 
kiss & Company, which succeeded the C. F. 
Brooks Lumber Company. He remained with 
the firm first as bookkeeper and then as general 
superintendent. In 1890, the firm of L. L. 
Hotchkiss & Company was succeeded by the 
Morton & Baccus Luml^er Company. 

In 1892 Mr. Kern went into the lumber 
business himself, buying the interests of the 
company, with which he had gained so much 
valuable experience. He purchased all the 
stock and in 1893 the Kern Manufacturing 
Company was incorporated, — a company that 
now owns and operates the largest lumber 
mills in the Saginaw Valley. As soon as he 
took charge, Mr. Kern commenced extensive 
additions and improvements. During 1892-93 
he erected two band and one rip sawmill, with 
capacity of 30,000,000 feet. A salt-block is 
operated in connection, which has a capacity 
of 200 barrels a day. The mills turn out 
20,000,000 feet of lumber annually and the 
company at present has 20,000,000 feet stored 
in their yards. This great industry is located 
in the Fifth Ward, in the south end of West 
Bay City, where the plant covers 120 acres, 
with a farm adjoining. Employment is given 
85 men, and 22 horses are required. Many 
of the employees reside here, there being 19 
houses and suiificient barns on the property, and 
its appearance is something like a small village. 

Mr. Kern finds his time pretty well taken 
up in looking after these huge interests, but he 
has always been willing to further public- 
spirited movements of all kinds in this locality, 
and has been a generous contributor in aid of 
the various honorable enterprises which have 
been instrumental in building up the commer- 
cial prosperity and good name of this part of 
the State. He has, however, persistently de- 



clined all political honors, merely casting his 
vote in favor of the candidates of the Republi- 
can party and feeling willing that others should 
enjoy political preferment. 

Mr. Kern was married at Bay City, Jan- 
uary 14, 1885, to Gertrude L. Minnie, who 
was born at Marine City, Michigan, and is a 
daughter of Dominick and Elizabeth (Dein) 
Minnie, natives of Michigan. They have two 
daughters, both at scliool, viz : Gladys Beth- 
any, who was born December 9, 1890; and 
Ruth Woodhull, who was born June 23, 1892. 
The handsome, comfortable home of Mr. Kern 
and family is situated in West Bay City, not 
far from the business section where Mr. Kern's 
presence is so constantly required. Its luxuri- 
ous furnishings and its extensive library testify 
to the intellectual tastes of the family. 

For many years Mr. Kern has been identi- 
fied with the higher branches of Masonry, and 
is a Knight Templar and a Shriner. He is an 
attendant of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
A man of quiet tastes and little show of osten- 
tation, he quietly fills a place among the cap- 
tains of industry in the Saginaw Valley, but 
his large interests have not been secured 
through the speculative operations which have 
given the name to many who pose as such. 




RED TIMM, one of the first-class 
farmers and good citizens of Ports- 
mouth township, Bay County, Michi- 
gan, residing in section 31, township 
14, range 6, and owning a well-improved farm 
of 80 acres, was torn in Germany, December 
18, 1842, and is a son of August and Mary 
(Kracht) Timm. 

The parents of Mr. Timm came to America 
in 1 87 1, joining him in Bay County. Both 
father and mother lived to a good old age. 




FRANK C. MERRILL 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



491 



dying in their 84th and 82nd years respectively. 
Tlieir declining years had been made comforta- 
ble by their children, seven of whom came to 
America ; one remained in Germany. 

Our subject was the fourth member of the 
family and the second of the three sons. When 
he landed in America in 1866. he came directly 
to Bay City and secured work in the sawmills. 
He was an industrious employee of the mills 
and was careful in saving his money so that 
when he was ready to settle down to farming, 
he had accumulated enough capital to buy well- 
situated land. About 10 acres of the 40 of 
his first purchase had been cleared, but the rest 
was all covered with stumps and brush. To 
look over his well-cultivated fields one can 
scarcely realize that only 15 years have passed 
since all this property was wild and uncleared. 
'Mr. Timm has made excellent improvements 
here, building a comfortable house and barns 
and setting out an orchard which has added 
materially to his income. A few words tell of 
all this, but it has taken many days of hard 
work to bring about the present condition of 
things and much credit is due Mr. Timm for 
what he has accomplished by his good manage- 
ment. 

At Bay City on August 8, 1872, Mr. Timm 
was married to Josephine Cook, who was born 
September 15, 1852, in Delaware. She came 
to Bay City with her parents, Fred and Chris- 
tine Cook, when a child of three years. Her 
father was born in Germany and when 20 years 
old came to America and located in Delaware, 
where he married. He died at Bay City in 
1902 and his wife died when Mrs. Timm was 
1 1 years old. Their children were : Bertha, 
deceased at the age of 21 years; Charles, of 
Bay City ; August, of Hampton township ; 
Emma; Amelia and Ameil (twins); Birney; 
Laura; Oscar; Esther; and four who died 
in infancy. Mr. Timm lost his first wife. 

27 



formerly Minnie Raut. and two children, when 
living in South Bay City. 

In politics, Mr. Timm is a Republican and 
he takes much interest in township affairs. He 
is one of the leading trustees of the German 
Methodist Church at Bay City. As a citizen 
and as a neighbor, Mr. Timm is well-thought 
of by all who know him. He is spoken of as 
a man whose word is always as good as his 
bond, which is pretty high praise. 



RANK C. MERRILL, postmaster at 
Bay City, Michigan, and a citizen 
of enterprise and public spirit, whose 
portrait accompanies this sketch, was 
born in Bay County, Michigan, October 27, 
1 87 1, and is a son of H. P. Merrill. 

The late H. P. Merrill was one of the most 
prominent citizens of Bay City, where his death 
took place in November, 1891, at the age of 
50 years. He is survived by his widow and 
two children : Frank C. and Mrs. Carroll Win- 
diate, of Bay City. Mr. Merrill came to Bay 
City in 1870 and became a member of the 
wholesale grocery firm of Gustin, ]\Ierrill & 
Company, wdiich was succeeded Iw Merrill & 
Fifield, with establishment located at the cor- 
ner of Fourth and Water streets. For years 
he was president of the first Chamber of Com- 
merce of Bay City and a director in the Sec- 
ond National Bank. His business energy w'as 
felt in all civic movements and he was justly 
considered a valued citizen. He served as an 
officer in the Civil War and the H. P. INIerrill 
Post, G. A. R., was named in his honor. He 
was also an acti\-e member in the Military 
Order of the Loyal Legion of the L'nited States 
and a Republican party leader. 

Frank C. Merrill was reared at Bay City 
and attended the common and high schools 



492 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



here and subsequently spent one year at the 
University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, coming 
home before graduation on account of the 
death of his father. He is a member of the 
,Zeta Psi fraternity. In 1892 he bouglit an 
interest in the Times-Press, and in 1901 lie 
bought the paper outright and until ]March, 
1903, continued the publication of the Times- 
Press, the Sunday Times and the U'eekly Jour- 
nal. Upon his appointment by President 
Roosevelt as postmaster at Bay City, he sold 
his papers to the Detroit Evening N'ezt's. 

Mr. Merrill owns a very attractive home in 
Bay City. He married a daughter of C. J. 
Smith, one of the capitalists of West Bay City. 
a vesel owner and formerly county treasurer. 
They have one child. Mr. and Mrs. ]\Ierrill 
attend the Protestant Episcopal Church. 

yir. Merrill could scarcely be anything but 
an active Republican in politics, cradled as he 
was in that party. He has done yeoman serv- 
ice and is chairman of the Republican County 
Committee. For four years he served as presi- 
dent of the Agricultural Association and is 
now treasurer of this organization, one of 
large numljers and much importance in Bay 
County. His father was a Knight Templar 
IMason and he himself has taken the 32nd de- 
gree and is a Mystic Shriner. He belongs also 
to the Elks and is one of the few American 
members of the Arbeiter Society, of Bay City. 

'Sir. IMerrill has always been interested in 
•athletics and during his college life was cap- 
tain of his class baseball team, belonged to felie 
University team and won honors for his alma 
mater in various contests. For two years he 
served as president of the Michigan State Trap 
Shooters League. Mr. Merrill is a fair type 
of that class of able, educated young men 
whose achievements show that they have been 
trained in no narrow school. He is deservedly 
popular in Bay City, both as an individual liv- 



ing up to the demands of civic life and as an 
official, serving his fellow-citizens with honesty 
and capacity. 




XDREW WEISS, one of the repre- 
sentative citizens of Frankenlust 
township. Bay County. ^Michigan, 
where he resides upon a fine farm 
of 160 acres situated in section 9, owns 
three other farms, — one being in section 5, 
Frankenlust township, the second in section 9, 
\\'illiams township and the third in Saginaw 
County, all being 160 acres in extent, except 
the one in section 5, Frankenlust township, 
which consists of 140 acres. Mr. Weiss was 
born in Frankenlust township, October 23, 
1863, and is a son of John George and Chris- 
tina (Feinauer) \\^eiss. 

John George Weiss, father of our subject, 
was born in Germany in 1822, and came to 
Bay County in 1849, accompanied by his wife, 
and died here in 1893. He was possessed of 
very small means when he came to this country, 
but had sufficient to purchase from the go\'ern- 
ment 56 acres of land in section i, Franken- 
lust township, on which his son, John C. Weiss, 
now lives. This was the nucleus of a large 
estate of 296 acres which he accumulated dur- 
ing life and parceled out to his sons. He and 
his wife led the lives of pioneers, their home 
l>eing a log cabin and their food being limited 
at first to the little they could raise and what 
they could secure in the way of wild growths 
in the forest. Mr. \\'eiss was incapacitated 
for a time v.ith malarial fever, a disease which 
attacked many settlers in the early days, be- 
cause of the swampy, undrained character of 
this region. On many occasions, in the early 
years, he would carry quantities of farm pro- 
duce on his back from his farm to the river, 
there load the articles in his canoe, and then 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



493 



propel himself and cargo to Lower Saginaw 
(now Bay City), where he would barter the 
produce for groceries. He became prominent 
in all that concerned the township and assisted 
with influence and money in the building of 
the first schools and churches. For i8 years 
he was an elder in St. Paul's German Lutheran 
Church and he contributed liberally to the 
l)uilding of the new structure. ]\Ir. Weiss led 
a sober, virtuous, useful life and when he 
passed away he was mourned by the whole 
neighborhood. He married a most excellent 
woman, Christina Feinauer, torn January 30, 
1829, who still survives and lives with her son, 
John C. Weiss, on the old homestead. 

The children of Mr. and Mrs. Weiss were: 
Anna Regina (Mrs. Kuch), of Frankenlust 
township: Mary Barbara (Mrs. Ittner), of 
Chesterfield. \"irginia: John M., of Franken- 
lust township; Anna Margaret (Mrs. Herbol- 
sheimer), of Frankenlust township; Barbara 
(Mrs. Knoer), of Saginaw County; Andrew, 
of this sketch; and John C, of Frankenlust 
township. 

Andrew Weiss was educated in the local 
schools and as he was brought up on a farm 
his knowledge of agricultural affairs is solid 
and practical. He has always carried on farm- 
ing and stock-raising and now operates his 
whole estate of 620 acres with the exception 
of the farm in Williams township. Improve- 
ments in the way of houses and barns are on all 
the farms, his residence being a commodious 
dwelling with agreeable sorroundings. He 
raises thousands of bushels of grain on the 
home farm, has 85 head of stock and raises 
annually several head of draft horses of the 
Clydesdale brand. His large amount of land 
and his successful management of it makes him 
one of the leading farmers of the county. 

On April 28, 1885. Mr. Weiss was married 
to .Anna Elizabeth Kirchhoff, who was born 



on the present home farm of our subject, Feb- 
ruary 6, 1863, and is a daughter of John Leon- 
ard and Mary Elizabeth (Fries) Kirchhoff, 
nati\-es of Germany, who came to Bay County 
in 1853. The father died in 1886, aged 59 
years, and the mother, now 81 years old, re- 
sides with Mr. and Mrs. Weiss. Nine children 
have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Weiss, namely : 
Leonard M., Gottlieb M., Louisa, Ludwig, 
Anna Margaret; John George, Henry, Anna 
Elizabeth and Herman. 

Mr. Weiss has long been one of the active 
Republicans of Frankenlust township and has 
served in a number of the more important local 
offices. He was a justice of the peace for eight 
years, for three years was school director, and 
at present is township assessor. He has been 
one of the most interested members of St. 
John's German Lutheran Church, has been its 
treasurer and has given liberally in support of 
its work. He is one of the men to whom his 
fellow-citizens refer with pride as being repre- 
sentative of the township's best, both as to capi- 
tal and as to character. 




OSEPH E. KOHN, chemical and me- 
chanical engineer, a prominent citizen 
of Bay City, Michigan, general super- 
intendent of the ]\Iichigan Chemical 
Company's plant at Bay City, and the Owosso 
Sugar Company in Owosso and Lansing, 
Michigan, was born in i860 in Bohemia, Aus- 
tria, and came to America in 1897. 

Few men are better equipped in every way 
for their life work than is Joseph E. Kohn. In 
1883 he graduated at the great technical college 
at Prague, in both mechanical and chemical 
engineering, retiring from that noted school 
with knowledge which enabled him to enter 
successfully into the sugar manufacturing l)usi- 



494 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



ness in Bohemia. After several years practice 
he was accepted as chemical assistant to Charles 
Steilen, the great inventor connected with the 
largest sugar manufacturing plant in Eur(.ipe. 
which is situated in Ahiraxia. After 
seven years of experience there. ]\Ir. 
Kohn came to America, being sent to 
Omaha, to erect a sugar-house, by one 
of the largest European manufacturing 
concerns, but the enterprise failed on account 
of lack of funds of the Omaha people. There- 
fore Mr. Kohn accepted a position with the 
Kitby Manufacturing Company, at Cleveland, 
Ohio. There he designed and constructed the 
sugar-houses of Bay City and Alma, Michigan, 
with their complicated machinery. During the 
subsecjuent four years he traveled all over the 
United States and designed, during this period, 
sugar-houses, or technical parts, in Michigan, 
Louisiana, California and New York. In 
1899 he came to Bay City as designer and con- 
structor and in 1901 he erected the Michigan 
Chemical Company's plant, after his own de- 
signs and with the utilization of the most mod- 
ern and approved methods of construction. 
Since then he has also erected a large molasses 
distillery for the General Distilling Company 
of Toronto, Canada, and has been interested 
in other enterprises. 

]\Ir. Kohn was awarded his professional 
title of Doctor when he was graduated as a 
master in chemistry. Personally, he is a man 
of commanding presence, and a most conspicu- 
ous figure on horseback, his training in this 
line having been obtained during his one year 
of \-oInnteer service in the best cavalry regi- 
ment in the Austrian Army. He belongs to 
numerous artistic and literary organizations, 
speaks almost all European languages and pos- 
sesses a notable collection of diplomas awarded 
him by many learned societies. 



HESTER A. KERN, a general mer- 
chant and well-known representative 
citizen of Auburn, Williams town- 
ship, Bay County, Michigan, was 
born October 4, 1870, in Williams township, 
and is a son of Anthony and Amelia (W^olfe) 
Kern. 

Anthony Kern came to Bay County in 1869 
from Roseville, \\'ayne County, IMichigan, 
where he had been a carpenter and farmer. He 
bought a farm of 160 acres of wild land in 
Williams township. Bay County, which he 
cleared and improved and has since sold. He 
has been prominently identified with the town- 
ship's development. In politics he is a stanch 
Republican. He filled the office of justice of 
the peace for 16 years. He was one of the 
trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
On May i, 1866, he was married at Roseville, 
Michigan, to Amelia Wolfe, who died May 25,. 

1893, ^"d ^^''^s 1'^''^ ^'^ ''^s*^ '" '^'^^ cemetery at 
Bay City. She was an admirable wife and 
mother and was esteemed by all who knew her. 
Four children were born to them, namely : 
Eva. E., wdio is the wife of T. C. Phillips, of 
South Bay City; Flora E., who is the wife of 
W. E. Cole, of Saginaw; Chester A., of this 
sketch; and Burton B., of West Bay City. 

Our subject was educated in the schools of 
Williams township and Bay City. After com- 
pleting his education, he accepted a clerical 
position with R. E. Swart, of Auburn, and in 
1896 he bought Mr. Swart out and has been 
conducting a first-class general store here ever 
since. He owns the whole business and has a 
handsome private residence and also owns a 
grain elevator, which he built in 1900. It is 
the only elevator in Williams township and has 
a capacity of 10,000 bushels. 

Mr. Kern was married on April 8, 1896, 
in Williams township, to Clarissa K. Saner,. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



495 



who is a daughter of JMartin and Jennie 
(Rogers) Sauer, and they have had two chil- 
dren, viz: Harold, who died at the age of lo 
months ; and Marion, a bright little girl of 
three years. 

In politics, Mr. Kern is a Republican. He 
is a leading member of the School Board. Like 
his father, he is a member of the IMethodist 
Episcopal Church, and is also one of the trus- 
tees. His fraternal associations include the 
Gleaners ; Auburn Lodge, No. 758, Independ- 
ent Order of Foresters ; and the Independent 
Order of Odd Fellows, a lodge of the last 
named organization ha\'ing been lately installed 
at Auburn. 




VA'ID \MLCOX. a successful farmer 
and stock-raiser residing in section 
21, Monitor township, Bay County, 
Alichigan, where he has a valuable 
farm of 200 acres, was born in Exeter, Eng- 
land, in 1848, and is a son of Samuel Isaac and 
Elizabeth (Davey) Wilcox. Mr. Wilcox 
comes of Scotch and English stock. His ances- 
tors were people of education and refinement. 
Samuel Isaac Wilcox, father of our sub- 
ject, left England for Canada in 1849, locating 
in the Province of Ontario. He was there 
located among uneducated people, and served 
as their letter writer and reader. He is now 
deceased, and is survived by his widow, aged 
85 years, who resides on the old homestead. 
Their union was blessed by the following off- 
spring: Samuel J., who lives on the old home 
farm in Canada; David; George W., of Chi- 
cago ; Joseph, a banker of Ontario ; Frances, a 
wheatbuyer of Brandon, Manitoba ; Septimus, 
of Ontario ; Antonius Pius, of Ontario ; and 
Cranmer R., who is employed as foreman by 
Gasser & Company, of Duluth, Minnesota. 
David Wilci^x attended the common schools 



of his vicinity in Ontario until he was iG years 
of age and then took up the work of earning 
means for his support and advancement. He 
was engaged in cutting walnut timber in L'^pper 
Canada until 1865, then removed to Marine 
City, Michigan, and soon after located in Bay 
City. Here he was employed by Smith 
Brothers on their lumber property along the 
Rifle River, for three summers booming the 
logs cut during the winters. He then returned 
to Canada and remained with his parents for 
four years, at the end of which time he again 
came to Bay City, being then 23 years old. 
He served as foreman and superintendent for 
Whitman & Company, jobbers for Burrows & 
Rust, until 1876, and then was marshal of the 
village of Banks for three years. He next 
worked for the Keystone Lumber Company 
as head woodsman, later as superintendent of 
booms, continuing with that company for 12 
years. In 1883 he purchased a farm of 160 
acres in section 21, Monitor township. later 
adding to it a tract of 20 acres and another of 
40 acres. He has disposed of 20 acres and still 
retains 200 acres, all under a high state of culti- 
vation. While working as boom superintend- 
ent he had all this land cleared on contract, and 
has since developed it along his ideas of what 
a good stock and dairy farm should be. He 
breeds horses and cattle in his own stud, and 
keeps 15 horses and 27 cows. He erected a 
comfortable home, a large barn and a silo, 17 
by 32 feet, and has all the conveniences of a 
modern farmer. He is a man of industrious 
habits, frugal and enterprising, and the success 
he has achieved is due solely to his indixidual 
efforts. 

In 1876, Mr. Wilcox was united in mar- 
riage with Mary Kerr, a daughter of John 
Kerr, a large contractor of Buffalo. New York, 
and they are parents of five children, as fol- 
lows : Gilbert C. ; James W. ; Samuel T. ; Ten- 



496 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



nette W., who attends the Bay City High 
School ; and Harrison Alger, who is named 
after President Harrison and Governor Alger. 
All of the children are living at home. Politi- 
cally, Air. Wilcox has always been an enthusi- 
astic supporter of Republican principles. He 
served as supervisor and treasurer of Whitney 
township, Arenac County, and three terms as 
school director of Monitor township, Bay 
County. Fraternally, he is a Mason. Having 
come to this county at an early date, he well 
rememljers many of the old landmarks and has 
witnessed a wonderful change in conditions. 
He has a recollection of the erection of the first 
brick building in Bay City, the Shearer House, 
in 1865, and the construction of the wooden 
bridge across the Saginaw River. 




g^-«|ERRY PHELPS, deceased, who for 
^M many years engaged successfully in 
the hotel business at many points, 
was engaged at the time of his death 
in farming in section 1 1 of Monitor township. 
Bay County, Michigan, where he owned a val- 
uable farm of 130 acres. He was a man of 
high business principles, dealing openly and 
with fairness in all his transactions, and he en- 
joyed the confidence and esteem of his fellow- 
citizens to a marked degree. He was born in 
Wayne County, New York, October 16, 1843, 
and was a son of Joel and Sally (Brock) 
Phelps, both natives of New York State. 

At an early age, Perry Phelps accompanied 
his parents to Michigan and completed his edu- 
cational training in the schools of Oakland 
County. He then came to Bay County, locat- 
ing at South Bay City, then known as the 
village of Portsmouth and now a part of Bay 
City. When 20 years old, Mr. Phelps enlisted 
in Company L, Fourth Reg., ^ilichigan Vol. 



Cav., and saw two years of hard service in 
the Civil War. He was in the battle of Salina, 
participated in Wilson's raid (in which the 
raiding detachment of Federals got behind the 
Rebel lines) and for a long period was unable 
to communicate with his young wife. He was 
one of the detail that captured Jefferson Davis 
and in effecting the capture his horse was shot 
from under him and the bullet pierced the calf 
of his leg, leaving a mark which remained 
throughout his life. He guarded the ambu- 
lance as a member of the detail which took 
President Davis to Nashville, Tennessee. He 
was mustered out at Nashville, in May, 1865, 
and immediately thereafter returned home to 
his wife in Bay City. He engaged in the hotel 
business in West Bay City, conducting the 
Phelps House, opposite to the Michigan Cen- 
tral Railroad Depot. Selling this property, he 
subsec|uently engaged in the liotel business suc- 
cessively at Alger, West Branch, Otsego Lake 
and Greyling. then in 1895 returned to Bay 
County and located upon his farm in section 1 1 
of Monitor township. He purchased this prop- 
erty in 1885,. cleared it of its timber and com- 
pleted the fine home which was in course of 
construction at the time the property came 
under his control. He built two good barns 
and other substantial outbuildings, converting 
the place into one of the best improved prop- 
erties in Monitor township. He established a 
dairy, and supplied milk and produce to the 
people of the city until his death on December 
2, 1903. His death was sadly mourned by his 
fellow-citizens as a loss to the community. The 
farm, which Mrs. Phelps still owns, is stocked 
with 25 head of cattle of standard breed and 
fi\e horses, and is being conducted by her only 
son, Edward. Mr. Phelps was a Republican 
in politics, and served in the City Council of 
Bay City, and as township treasurer while at 
West Branch. He was a member of Wenona 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



497 



Lodge. No. 296, F. & A. JNL, of West Bay Cit}', 
of which he was one of the oldest members at 
the time of his death. He also belonged to 
Greyling Post, G. A. R. 

At South Bay City, in July, 1863, Perry 
Phelps was united in marriage with Sarah Tol- 
free, who was born in Ithaca, New York and 
is a daughter of Joshua and Melisa (Brock) 
Tolfree, her father coming from England and 
her mother from Pennsylvania. Her paternal 
grandfather was a mechanic and built the cars 
used by the New York Central Railroad when 
the road was first opened. Mrs. Phelps is a 
member of the Women's Relief Corps, serving 
as conductress at the present time, and a mem- 
ber of the Eastern Star. She is a woman of 
lovable traits and has a host of friends in this 
countv. 




IRGIL L. TUPPER, A. M., M. D., 
one of the leading surgeons of Bay 
County, Michigan, standing at the 
head of his profession in this section 
of the St;ite, was born in Pennsylvania March 
14, 1869, and is a son of Benjamin and Selena 
(Bonnell) Tupper. 

Dr. Tupper comes of a medical family, 
both grandfather and great-grandfather having 
been eminent in the profession of medicine, 
which his father also studied for some years. 
The last named became interested in the oil 
business and is now a resident of Pittsburg, 
Pennsylvania, a man of prominence there. 
Both parents of Dr. Tupper were born in New 
York. They reared four children, one son, — 
Virgil L., — and three daughters, viz: Florence, 
who is the wife of William Connor, of Plain- 
ville, New Jersey ; Laura O., a highly educated 
young lady, a graduate of the University of 
Michigan, who resides with her parents at 
Pittsburg; and Leah U., who is deceased. 



In childhood, \"irgil L. Tupper became a 
member of the household of his uncle, Dr. 
Horace Tupper, in order to enjoy better edu- 
cational opportunities than could be afforded 
him by his father, while the latter was engaged 
in his business in widely separated oil fields. 
Through his boyhood he attended the schools 
of Bay City and then spent some time at the 
old Washington and Jefferson College, in 
Washington County, Pennsylvania, after 
which he returned to Michigan and completed 
his literary course at Ann Arbor. Turning his 
attention to the science of medicine, he entered 
that grand old institution, the Jefferson Medi- 
cal College, at Philadelphia, where he was most 
creditably graduated with the class of 1896. 
In a competitive examination he won the cov- 
eted position of interne in the college hospital, 
and, after completing his term here, he entered 
St. Mary's Hospital, in the same city. He 
closed his work in Philadelphia by taking spe- 
cial surgical work in the clinic of the noted Dr. 
Baer. Aiming still higher. Dr. Tupper then 
entered the medical school of Johns Hopkins 
University at Baltimore, where he took a spe- 
cial course, under the best conditions which the 
resources of that magnificent institution com- 
mand, in gynecology, surgery, children's dis- 
eases and medicine. 

In March, 1898, Dr. Tupper settled at Bay 
City, vvdiere he was shortly afterward pros- 
trated with a serious attack of typhoid fever, 
superinduced, perhaps, by the close confinement 
of his hospital work, his enthusiasm possibly 
making him ignore precautions he would never 
permit his patients to forget. After three 
months of illness he recuperated and for years 
has been a type of manly strength and endur- 
ance. He is recognized as the leading surgeon 
of this section of the State and on many cases 
his dictum has been regarded as a court of last 
resort. Where his skill cannot help, hope is 



498 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



vain. Dr. Tupper controls the practice of his 
late venerated uncle. Dr. Horace Tupper, and 
has a larger personal practice than he can give 
attention to. For the past four years he has 
been most conveniently located on the south- 
west corner of Sixth and Adams streets in Bay 
City. 

In 1 90 1, Dr. Tupper was united in mar- 
riage with Mary Cranage, a member of a rep- 
resentative family of Bay County, and a daugh- 
ter of Thomas Cranage of Bay City. They 
have one son who bears the name of Thomas, 
in honor of his grandfather. 

Dr. Tupper is a prominent member of the 
American I\Iedical Association, and of the 
Michigan State Medical Society, and in 1903 
served a.s president of the Bay County Medical 
Society. Aside from professional connections, 
he has many social associations and belongs to 
the Bay City Club and to the Elks. 




OHN WALSH. This gentleman, who 
served for one term, with marked effi- 
ciency and great acceptability, as may- 
or of West Bay City, is one of the old- 
est residents of this vicinity, having located in 
Bay City in 1866. He is actively engaged in 
the coal mining industry, and holds the posi- 
tion of president of the United City Coal Com- 
pany, the headquarters of which are in West 
Bay City. 

Mr. Walsh was born in Haldimand Dis- 
trict, Ontario, in 1S46. There he was reared 
and schooled, and there he remained until his 
removal to Bay City, Michigan, as previously 
mentioned. His residence in Bay City cov- 
ered a period of 17 years, during a great por- 
tion of which he was engaged in the retail gro- 
cery trade on Center avenue. After disposing 
of that business to Messrs. Chatfield and Speer, 



Mr. Walsh purchased the store of John Mc- 
Graw, located in South Bay City, which he con- 
ducted successfully for two years. 

Upon his removal to West Bay City, in 
1S83, the subject of this sketch established a 
wholesale grocery house, in partnership with 
Luther B. Edinborough. Mr. Edinborough 
was some time afterward appointed postmaster 
of West Bay City and Mr. Walsh purchased 
the former's interest in the concern, and con- 
ducted its constantly increasing business for 
two years, without a partner. In 1896 James 
R. Tanner was admitted to partnership, and 
two years afterward, Harry J. Daily became 
associated with ^Messrs Walsh and Tanner. 

In 1 90 1, Mr. Walsh withdrew entirely from 
the concern, having disposed of his interest to 
Messrs. Tanner and Daily. Since the subject 
of this sketch established the business, its vol- 
ume had grown from $90,000 to more than 
$500,000 per year. 

The United City Coal Company, of which 
Air. Walsh is president, was organized in Au- 
gust, 1903. The other officials are: David 
Jones, vice-president; and W. W. Chapman, 
secretary and treasurer. The property of the 
company consists of a tract of 75 acres, a part 
of which is situated within the corporate limits 
of the city. One shaft, employing about 40 
men, is now in successful operation. To the 
direction of the affairs of this enterprise, Mr. 
Walsh now gives his principal attention. 

LTntil within the past two years, the subject 
of this sketch was quite active in Republican 
politics, and has been conspicuous in his advo- 
cacy of the consolidation of the "Bay Cities." 
Shortly after his retirement from the wholesale 
grocery business, he was elected mayor of West 
Bay City. He assumed the mayoralty when the 
public treasury was empty. The city had a 
bonded indebtedness of $400,000 and a floating 
debt of $74,500. By a strictly business admin- 



-<>. 




CAPT. JOHN O. WOOLSOX 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



501 



istration, which curtailed improvements and re- 
duced expenditures, the new incumbent and the 
Council placed the city on a sound financial 
basis, and re-established its credit within six 
months. Their system of retrenchment reduced 
the floating debt to about $40,000, settled the 
interest account and liquidated most of the 
claims against the city, outside of the bonded 
indebtedness. 

Mr. Walsh has three sons, all residents of 
West Bay City, namely: Harry J., a retail 
grocer ; Arthur G., a produce commission deal- 
er; and Frank A., who has the State agency 
for the "Seal of Minnesota" flour, with head- 
quarters at Cleveland, Ohio. 



\PT. JOHN O. WOOLSON, one of 
the most prominent citizens of Bay 
City, Michigan, and president of the 
Bradley Transportation Company, 
was born in Tunbridge, Orange County, Ver- 
mont, April 15. 1826. His career is an impres- 
sive illustration of what may be accomplished 
by natural ability, supplemented by ambition, 
energy and perseverance. Beginning as a 
humble sailor boy, his own exertions have won 
for him a degree of success which renders 
his life an encouraging example to every as- 
piring youth. Captain Woolson is a son of 
Asa and Mary (White) Woolson, whose an- 
cestors were English and among the earliest 
•settlers of New Hampshire. 

Asa Woolson was born April 4, 1796, at 
Langdon, New Hampshire, and died June 5, 
1827. He learned the trade of a clothier in a 
woolen mill. He started a woolen mill at 
Tunljridge when a young man, and was oper- 
ating it at the time of his death. He was a 
sturdy, ambitious man, of rugged honesty. He 
jiiarried Marv White. 



Captain Woolson's grandfather, Asa Wool- 
son, was born at Lunenburg, Massachu- 
setts, February 4, 1767, and died at Grafton, 
Vermont, September 22, 1826. He married 
Ann Sargent, who was born in Templeton, 
Massachusetts, November 3, 1771, and died 
at Springfield, Vermont, November 29, 1857. 

Captain Woolson's great-grandfather, Asa 
Woolson, was born at Weston, Massachusetts, 
August 2, 1727, and died at Lunenburg, Mas- 
sachusetts, April 18, 1789. His wife was born 
at Woburn, Massachusetts, July 3, 1736. 

Captain Woolson's great-great-grandfather, 
Joseph Woolson, came from England when 
17 years of age, and settled in \\'eston. There 
he built a block-house in which a garrison was 
manitained for a number of years, as a defense 
against the Indians. Four generations of the 
family were born in this block-house. 

Captain Woolson, our subject's father, died 
when his son, John O., was one year old, and 
his widow then moved to St. Lawrence County, 
New York, where she married Henry William 
Bard. When the subject of this sketch was 
six years old, the family moved to Painesville, 
Lake County, Ohio. His opportunities for 
mental improvement were quite limited, and at 
an early age he became self-supporting. When 
but a lad he commenced following the water, 
where he worked his way up until he became a 
sailing master, and for years commanded sail- 
ing and steam vessels on the Great Lakes. 

In 1864, Captain \\'oolson came to Bay 
City. Michigan, and formed a partnership with 
Nathan B. Bradley in the steam-tug business. 
In addition to this, he became interested in a 
grocery, his store being located in Water street. 
In 1875 ^""^ severed his connection with Mr. 
Bradley and bought other \-essel property, still 
continuing in the retail grocery trade. He also 
made a specialty of supplying vessels with nec- 
essaries. In 1 88 1 he abandoned the grocery 



S02 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



business, and has since given his entire atten- 
tion to his shipping interests. 

In 1887, Captain Woolson buiU the 
schooner, "IMary Woolson," now owned by the 
Bradley Transportation Company, which also 
owns the steamer "C. H. Bradley" and the 
schooner "Brightie." This company was in- 
corporated in 1 89 1, with Captain Woolson as 
president; F. W. Bradley, vice-president; and 
C. H. Bradley, secretary. 

The subject of this sketch was one of the 
original stockholders of the First National 
Bank, of Bay City, and became a stockholder 
in the Bay City National Bank, when it suc- 
ceeded the first-named institution. 

Captain Woolson's first wife was Lovisa 
E. Davis, of Painesville, Ohio. One son was 
born to them named Francis, who married 
Malvina Wilson, and died in 1878, leaving a 
widow and two children, — Maude, since de- 
ceased ; and Minnie, who is the wife of Z. A. 
Carr, of Park Rapids, Minnesota. 

On July 13, 1854, Captain W^oolson mar- 
ried Betsey M. Ingraham, a daughter of Jo- 
seph Ingraham. Two children were born to 
them, namely: Fred H., of Bay City; and 
Mary, wife of F. S. Tear, of Painesville, Ohio. 

Captain Woolson's third wife was Jose- 
phine H. Webster, of Painesville, Ohio, whom 
he married May i, 1891. 

Captain Woolson has been active in the ves- 
sel business for a longer period than any other 
resident of Bay City. His prominence has 
been gained by slow degrees, and is the direct 
result of the sterling traits of character which 
have made him everywhere respected. His 
irreproachable record is based upon self-reli- 
ance, unswerving integrity and untiring per- 
sistence, and reflects great credit upon the com- 
munity with which he has been identified for 
40 years. 

In 1874, Captain Woolson built his present 



fine residence at No. 302 Garfield avenue, then 
known as the Bowery. The streets were still 
ungraded, when he set out the splendid maple 
shade trees which surround and adorn this beau- 
tiful home. 

The subject of this sketch has always been 
a Republican, although never a politician, and 
has served as supervisor of the Fourth Ward. 
Fraternally, he is a member of Bay City Lodge 
No. 129, F. & A. M. His portrait accompanies 
this sketch, being presented on a foregoing 
page. 



i 



ON. THEODORE F. SHEPARD, an 
honored resident of Bay City, who is 
judge of the 18th Judicial Circuit of 
Michigan, Bay County, — is one of 
the most prominent and successful members of 
the State bar. 

Judge Shepard was born in Livingston 
County, New York, June 14, 1844. He is a 
son of Howell Shepard, a native of Yates Coun- 
ty, New York, who was for some time a thriv- 
ing farmer in that vicinity, and was subse- 
quently engaged in mercantile pursuits in Alle- 
ghany County, where he died in i860. In poli- 
tics, the father was in early times a Whig, but 
was identified with the organization of the Re- 
publican party. The mother of Judge Shepard 
was Sarah Rathbun, a native of New York 
State. 

The subject of this sketch attended the pub- 
lic schools of New York and afterward pursued 
a course of study in Alfred University, Alle- 
ghany County, graduating in 1865. Soon after 
his graduation, he began the study of the law 
in Cuba, New York, in the office of Hon. Mar- 
shall B. Champlin, a distinguished lawyer, who 
was Attorney General of the State for six years. 
After a preliminary course of reading. Judge 
Shepard continued his studies in the Albany 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



503 



Law Scliool, and was admitted to the bar in 
1866. He then spent another year in the office 
of Mr. Champhn. At the end of this period he 
came to Michigan and commenced practice in 
West Bay City, having formed a partnership 
with Hon. C. P. Black. He soon attained 
marked success in his profession and also be- 
came prominent in pubhc affairs. 

In 1872 Judge Shepard was elected prose- 
cuting attorney, and conducted the affairs of 
that office in such a vigorous and impartial 
manner as to strike terror to the minds of evil- 
doers. During his term of office, law-breaking 
was reduced to a minimum, and many of the 
resorts of criminals were closed. As a conse- 
quence of the reputation he thus acquired, many 
criminal cases were subsequently ]^laced in his 
hands, and for years thereafter he had the lead- 
ing business in the city in that class of litiga- 
tion. 

Previous to his entrance upon a higher 
sphere of effort, Judge Shepard served as city 
attorney of West Bay City for several terms. 
He was a member of the Board of Education 
for 12 years, acting as its chairman during the 
entire period. For 10 years he was also presi- 
dent of the Water Commission. 

In 1890, President Harrison appointed 
Judge Shepard, United States district attorney 
for the Eastern District of Michigan, a posi- 
tion which he filled with notable efficiency for 
four years. 

Judge Shepard was married in Cuba, New 
York, in January, 1868, to Mary M. Randolph, 
a daughter of S. S. Randolph, a native of the 
"Empire" State. Three children resulted from 
this union, namely: Howell C, now about 30 
years of age; Lottie E., who died when six 
years of age; and Mamie E., who died in 1900, 
in her 28th year. 

The subject of this sketch has always been 
an ardent champion of the principles of the Re- 



publican party. He was chairman of the Re- 
publican Congressional District Committee for 
several years. He has been a member of the 
Republican State Central Committee, and has 
rendered most eft'ective service on the stump 
in various campaigns. He was a delegate to 
the national convention at Cincinnati, which 
nominated President Hayes, and has held a seat 
in almost every Republican State convention 
for 25 years. The offices which he has filled 
with conspicuous ability have been in connec- 
tion with educational matters and the profession 
of the law. 




LOYD HAMILTON RANDALL, B. 
S., M. D., physician and surgeon at 
West Bay City, Michigan, a thor- 
oughly equipped member of his pro- 
fession, has been established in this city since 
1904. Dr. Randall was born in West Bay City, 
September 5, 1875, a member of one of the old 
and honored families of this section, being the 
son of Dr. Isaac E. Randall, one of the oldest 
practitioners in Bay County. 

After completing the public-school course 
and graduating from the Bay City High School 
in 1893, he entered the University of INIich- 
igan at Ann Arbor, where he took the combined 
courses of literature and medicine. In the 
former he was graduated in 1897, with the de- 
gree of B. S., and two years later was grad- 
uated in medicine, receiving his degree of M. 
D. He then accepted the position of medical 
house officer at the Lakeside Hospital, Cleve- 
land, Ohio, where he remained 18 months, and 
then took charge of the Wabash Railroad PIos- 
pital, at Moberly, Missouri, for six months. 
While this experience was of inestimable value 
to the young physician and surgeon, he decided 
upon a visit to the great medical centers of 



504 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Europe before entering on private practice. 
For one year he engaged in post-graduate Avork 
at Vienna, Austria, and in 1902, was fortunate 
enough to obtain an appointment on the staff 
of Dr. von MikuHcz, the great authority on 
surgery, at the Royal University of Breslau, 
who has a world-wide reputation. The vahie 
of this appointment to the young surgeon could 
not be overestimated. 

In the fall of 1903, after a year's service on 
the hospital staff, Dr. Randall left Breslau and 
turned his face in the direction of his native 
land, stopping for a few months, however, to 
take some post-graduate work at the Rotunda 
Maternity Hospital at Dublin, Ireland. Upon 
his return to West Bay City, he opened an of- 
fice and has met with a very cordial reception. 
His thorough medical and surgical preparation, 
combined with natural ability and professional 
enthusiasm, have gained him the confidence of 
the public who appreciate what is required in 
the successful practitioner of the present day. 
Dr. Randall has a wealth of experience to draw 
upon and he has also the zeal, watchfulness, 
knowledge and skill which mark the accepted 
professional man of the 20th century. 

Dr. Randall is a member of the local medi- 
cal societies and is fraternally associated with 
both the Masons and the Odd Fellows. 




R. LEWIS, M. D., one of the best 
known professional men of Bay 
County, was the founder of the 
Lewis Hospital, of Bay City, and is 
also president of the Lewis College for Nurses, 
which is an auxiliary to the hospital. 

Dr. Lewis was born at Seneca Falls, New 
York, January 4, 1855, ^""^ received his early 
•educational training in Seneca Falls Academy. 
At the age of 19 years he took up the study of 



the sciences and later the study of medicine 
and surgery, graduating from Jefferson Medi- 
cal College in 1878. He has always been a 
close student and upon graduation had the 
honor of first prize. He has had more than 1 5 
years experience in hospital work in some of 
the largest hospitals in this country, and has 
pursued post-graduate work in New York City, 
assisting the professors in clinics. He prac- 
ticed in New York State for some years and in 
Illinois for one year. He holds certificates 
from each of these States and also from Michi- 
gan, whither he moved from Illinois, locating 
at Bay City. In 1900, he established at No. 
1 203 Broadway, Bay City, the Lewis Hospital, 
an institution modern in all its appointments, 
where all classes of patients are well cared for, 
except those with contageous diseases, who are 
not received. He established the Lewis Col- 
lege for Nurses as an auxiliary lo the hospital, 
and this also takes high rank among institu- 
tions of the kind. Its trustees are: Mrs. M. 
S. Knaggs, president ; Miss Helen MacGregor, 
1st vice-president; Mrs. Annie E. Coffin, 2nd 
vice-president; Mrs. Eva Asman, secretary; 
Mrs. M. K. Lewis, treasurer. The students are 
given thorough training in practical hospital 
work before graduation, as well as a complete 
course of study. 

Dr. Lewis is a student of his profession 
and a scientist, devoting nearly all his time to 
study that is not taken up by his business 
affairs. He has written several works in the 
past, and there is now in the hands of the pub- 
lishers a work on anatomy and physiology 
which will cover over 500 pages. He main- 
tains an office in Suite 6, of the Bank Block, 
at No. 302 Center avenue. In 1879 Dr. 
Lewis joined the Masonic order and is a mem- 
ber of Auburn Lodge, No. 431. F. & A. M. 
He became a member of the Order of the East- 
ern Star in i88s, became a Royal Arch Mason 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



505 



in 1886 and took the Scottish Rite degrees in 
1903. He joined the Knights of Pythias in 
1886 and became past chancellor in 1903. He 
joined the Independent Order of Odd Fellows 
in 1899 and the Benevolent and Protective 
Order of Elks in 1901. He also belongs to the 
]\Iodern Woodmen of America and the Tribe 
of Ben Hnr lodges. 




OSEPH POOUETTE. a prosperous 
farmer, whose property is located in 
section 28, Kawkawlin township. Bay 
County, ]\Iichigan, was born in Ot- 
tawa, Canada, in 1853. When he was an in- 
fant, his father died. His mother still lives in 
Ottawa, and is past 85 years of age. 

The subject of this sketch had no oppor- 
tunity to attend school. He received his first 
lessons from a fellow workman named John 
Gallan, who taught him how to write his name. 
He worked seven years in lumber camps in 
Canada, and several years for David Moore, 
who was in the lumber business in Ottawa. 
When about 28 years old, he came to Michigan 
and located at Bay City. He worked in the 
northern woods in winter, and in sawmills in 
the summer. He also worked for the gas com- 
pany in Bay City. By thrift, enterprise and 
hard work, he has accumulated a nice property, 
and is now able to live in comfort. 

yiv. Poquette bought his present farm of 
40 acres in 1888. At that time it was wild land, 
covered with timber, and he did not have the 
money to pay for the papers. In 1900 he put up 
a substantial barn, and in 1904 he built a fine 
dwelling, valued at $1,800. He is engaged in 
general farming and stockraising. 

On April 29, 1882, Mr. Poquette was mar- 
ried to Anna Vizene, a daughter of Joseph and 
Elizabeth (Wells) Vizene, natives of Quebec, 



Canada. Mrs. Poquette was born at Ottawa, 
Canada. Her father died when she was an 
infant. Her mother died in 1881, leaving 10 
children, of whom Mrs. Poquette was the eighth 
in order of birth. Mr. and Mrs. Poquette 
adopted, at the age of three weeks, a babe,, 
named Annie, who died in 1893, ^t the age of 
eight years and eight months. In 1902 they 
adopted two girls, — Delena and Mamie. The 
former was born March 7, 1886, and the latter 
April 12, 1888. 

Politically, Mr. Poquette is a Republican. 
He is a member of the Maccabees and the- 
Grange. In religion, he is a Catholic. 




OHN C. HEWITT, president of the 
Bay City Gas Company, and Junior 
member of the law firm of Cooley & 
Hewitt, of Bay City, is a man in the- 
prime of life, and was born April 6, 1862, in 
.■\lmont township, Lapeer County, Michigan, 
and is a son of Calvin A. and IMary S. 
(Churchill) Hewitt. 

The Hewitt family is an old and honored 
one of New England and many of its represen- 
tatives are not unknown to fame. They were 
early residents of Rutledge Centre, Vermont" 
the founders coming thither from the North of 
Ireland were probably of Scotch e.xtraction. 
Amos S. Hewitt, the paternal grandfather, 
was born at Rutledge Centre, Vermont, and 
was a pioneer in Michigan. 

Calvin A. Hewitt, father of our subject, 
was born in Lapeer County, Michigan, March 
18, 1835, and died at Bay City aged 69 years. 
A practical stone mason by trade, he was one 
of the early building contractors of the city. 
He came here in 1863 and continued his con- 
tracting business until his decease, building the 
Concordia Block and manv of the best resi- 



5o6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



deuces. Until the organization of the Green- 
back party, he was an active Repubhcan, but in 
the new organization he saw the solving of 
manv problems which stood in the way of the 
country's prosperity. He took a lively interest 
in the promulgation of its doctrines and faith- 
fully supported its candidates. The only polit- 
ical office he ever accepted for himself, was that 
of supervisor, which he filled for one term, but 
he was a loyal supporter of the claims of his 
friends. He was one of the early members of 
tlie Odd Fellow organization at Portsmouth. 
His wife was a consistent member of the Bap- 
tist Church and he was an attendant and a lib- 
eral supporter. The three of his children who 
reached maturity are: Frank A., of Bay City; 
John C, of this sketch; and Ernest C, also of 
Bay City. 

Ji-ihn C. Hewitt was reared at Bay City and 
was given a good common-school education. As 
soon as his books were put aside, he entered the 
employ of the Nafio)ial Globe, of this city, as 
bookkeeper. In his spare moments he learned 
to set type, under the instruction of an old-time 
printer, Garry C. Laing, and when his duties on 
the newspaper ended, he went to Vassar and 
became a compositor on a journal there, but 
six months at the business satisfied his ambi- 
tions in that direction. 

In 1 88 1 he returned to Bay City and became 
"bookkeeper for the firm of Rust Brothers & 
Company and remained here until 1885. In 
this year he was made deputy comptroller of 
Bav City and he continuefl in the office until 
September, 1888. For some months he was 
employed as bookkeeper by Greene & Stevens 
and then entered into partnership w^ith James 
A. Greene, in a sawmill enterprise, under the 
firm name of James A. Greene & Company, in 
which he continued to be interested until No- 
vember, 1890, when he returned to the comp- 
troller's office, and continued to serve under 



Capt. \\'illiam Keith until 1892. 3,Ir. Hewitt 
then formed a new business connection, enter- 
ing into a copartnership with James B. Barber 
and Alexander Logan, under the firm name of 
the Bay City Excelsior Company. I\Ir. Hewitt 
was only actively connected with this business 
for one vear although it continued for some five 
vears. In the meantime he had become an ex- 
pert accountant for Bay County, in the litiga- 
tion growing out of the action commenced by 
the Auditor General of ^Michigan against Will- 
iam \'. Prybeski, county treasurer, the suit be- 
ing to recover taxes due the State. Mr. Hewitt 
was thus employed until the contest was over, 
his expert work being highly commended on all 
sides. 

Mr. Hewitt continued to work as a general 
accountant until August, 1895, when he was 
admitted to the bar, having been engaged in the 
quiet study of the law since 1885, under the 
direction of competent attorneys. He was as- 
sisted by these well-known attorneys : Alfred 
P. Lvon, John Simonson, John C. \\'eadock 
and Ubald R. Loranger. Upon his admission 
to the bar, he entered the law office of Edgar 
A. Cooley as the latter's assistant and remained 
in that position until April, 1889. Since that 
time he has been associated with Mr. Cooley 
as partner. 

In 1895, Mr. Hewitt was appointed local 
attorney for the Detroit & ^lackinac Railway; 
he continued with this corporation through 
1896 and during the same period was local at- 
torney for the Michigan Central Railroad Com- 
pany and has continued his railroad connection 
since entering into partnership with Mr. Cooley. 
He has been interested in various business en- 
terprises, and in 1899 he was appointed attor- 
ney and was elected president of the Bay City 
Gas Light Company. Subsequently a reorgan- 
ization of this company took place, but Mr. 
Hewitt continued as president and attorney of 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



507 



the Bay City Gas Company, under its new- 
charter. He has been actively interested in all 
lines of public improvement here and is 
counted one of the city's representative men. 

Mr. Hewitt married Hattie JM. Howard, of 
Midland, Michigan, and they have two chil- 
dren : Fred F. and Mary Naomi. Both he and 
his wife attend the First Presbyterian Church. 

While nominally a Democrat, Mr. Hewitt 
is in no way a politician in the usually accepted 
sense. He has served as a member of the 
Board of Supervisors of Bay County and of the 
Board of Public Works, of Bay City, being 
president of the latter board for a period of two 
years. Fraternally he is a Mason, being a 
member of Portsmouth Lodge, No. 190, F. & 
A. M., and Blanchard Chapter, R. A. M., both 
of Bay City. He belongs also to the Elks, to 
the Modern Woodmen of America and to the 
Bay City Club. 




OHN P. SNYDER, M. D., the pioneer 
physician of Williams township. Bay 
County, Michigan, and one of the 
busiest professional men in this sec- 
tion, was born in the Dominion of Canada, at 
Burgessville Ontario, in January, 1846. He is 
a son of Philip and Catherine (McLees) 
Snyder. 

The father of Dr. Snyder came to Michi- 
gan in 1862 and bought 120 acres of land in 
Attica township, Lapeer County, on which he 
lived until his death in July, 1902. A brother, 
also deceased, was a merchant at Geneva, New 
York. Of the family of 13 children born to 
Pliilip and Catherine (McLees) Snyder, two 
sons and five daughters survive. Our sub- 
ject's brother, Lewis, still resides on the old 
homestead. 

John P. Snyder was 16 years of age when 



he accompanied his father to Michigan, after 
which he spent two terms in the public schools 
at Attica, which completed his literary educa- 
tion. He then entered upon the study of medi- 
cine with Dr. J. W. Bryant, in Lapeer County, 
with whom he continued until the death of the 
latter, two years later, when he went to Cleve- 
land and studied for a year and a half in the 
Cleveland Hospital College. 

In 1870, Dr. Snyder settled down to prac- 
tice in \\'illiams township. Bay County. In 
1896 he went to Cliicago and was graduated 
from the National Medical College, where he 
later took a post-graduate course. When lie 
first came to Williams township, he found that 
he would have to face many hardships, mainly 
on account of the unsettled condition of the 
country. Although his calls came from all di- 
rections, at that time there were only three 
passable roads, running north, between Mid- 
land and Bay City. He can remember when 
he could count 27 lumber, square timber, hoop 
and railroad camps, and five saloons within 
two and a half miles of Auburn. His practice 
at present is a very large one. requiring him to 
keep four horses and he covers a territory about 
25 miles in extent, north and south. He has 
always kept abreast of the times in his profes- 
sion, and is a member of the Homeopathic State 
Medical Society, and a subscriber to all current 
medical literature. 

In May. 1868, Dr. Snyder was married to 
Annetta Blodgett, who is a daughter of Charles 
and Laura (Groves) Blodgett. They have had 
these children : Charles, deceased at the age of 
five years ; G. Roy, of Willard, Beaver town- 
ship : Helen, who is the wife of W. G. Hardy, 
of Hasseltine, Washington: and Earl J., a drug 
clerk at Sandwood, Michigan. 

Dr. Snyder is an active supporter of the Re- 
publican party. In spite of his absorbing pro- 
fessional duties, he has found time to serve as a 



So8 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



school director and township clerk (holding 
the former office for 12 years and the latter for 
nine) and to promote the various movements in 
the township looking to the public welfare. He 
is a charter member of the Independent Order 
of Foresters lodge of Williams township and 
belongs to the I. O. O. F. lodge at Kawkawlin. 



J 



SCAR F. MEISELBACH, chairman 
of the Bay City Sanitary Milk Com- 
pany, Ltd., and the owner of a fine 
dairy and fruit farm of 12J-2 acres, 
situated in section 2, t(jwnship 13. range 5, in 
Portsmouth township, is one of the county's 
prominent and progressive citizens. He was 
bom at Bay City in 1865, and is a son of Henry 
and Sarah (Derlich) Meiselbach, who were 
born in Saxony, Germany, and came to .Vmer- 
ica with their respective parents. 

Henry Meiselbach was killed in a railroad 
wreck in South Bay City in 1871, at the age of 
36 3-ears. His trade was that of millwright. 
His widow lives in Bay City. Their five chil- 
dren were: Oscar F., of this sketch; Charles, 
of Bay City; Albert and Tlieodore (twins), the 
former of Bay City and the latter deceased ; 
and Henrietta, born after her father's death, 
who resides with her mother. 

The death of his father when he was only 
seven years old placed many responsibilities on 
the shoulders of Oscar F. Meiselbach at an 
early age and at the age of 13 years he became 
a wage earner. His first work was at the salt- 
wells where he continued several years. He 
then learned the cooper's trade, at which he 
worked until he located on his present farm in 
Portsmouth township. For 1 1 years he oper- 
ated a first-class dairy in connection with the 
growing of choice fruit, but since the organiza- 
tion of the Bay City Sanitary Milk Company, 



Ltd., in May, 1902, his whole time has been 
given to this industry, aside from that re- 
quired for his official duties as justice of the 
peace, to which office he was elected in the 
spring of 1904. 

On January 12, 1887, Mr. Meiselbach was 
united in marriage with Sophia Wispintner, 
who was born in Portsmouth township, Bay 
County, January 12, 1866, and is a daughter 
of Jacob and Henrietta Wispintner. TwO' 
bright, intelligent children have been born to 
our subject and wife, both sons, — Oswald, born 
November 13, 1889; and Walter, born August 
17, 1896. The family enjoy the comforts of a 
very fine home. Other improvements here in- 
clude good barns and hay and cattle sheds ; in 
fact all the accessories and conveniences needed 
in the successful carrying on of a dairy busi- 
ness are to be found on the place. 

Politically, Mr. Meiselbach has always been 
a stanch Republican and has filled local offices 
at various times as his personal business affairs 
permitted. He has been connected \\ith the 
school board of District No. 3 for the past nine 
years, and is serving at present in his third 
term. 




OHN WILSON, Jr., is a prosperous 
farmer of Mount Forest township, 
Bay County, Michigan, where he has 
li\-ed for many years. He was born 
in tlie Province of Ontario, Canada, in 1840, 
and is a son of John and Polly (Brooks) Wil- 
son. 

John Wilson, the father, was born in South 
Carolina and was a soldier in the War of 1812. 
At an early date he moved to Ontario, Canada, 
where he was married, and there followed 
farming until his death. His wife, Polly 
Brooks, was born in Quebec, Canada. They 
became parents of 12 children, of whom our 




WILLIAM G. ROECKER 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



511 



subject and a sister, — Caroline, widow of Gib- 
son Wilson, — are the sole survivors. 

John ^^'ilson, Jr., was born on the home 
farm in Canada and received his education in 
the public schools of his home district. Oil 
July 18, 1859, he came to the United States, 
locating at old Brockway, then known as 
Hardscrabble, Michigan. There he followed 
farming for a time, then purchased a farm of 
80 acres at Fremont, Michigan, where he was 
a pioneer and lived for a period of 31 years. 
He disposed of this farm to his son James on 
September 18, 1892, and moved to his present 
farm, located in section 26, Mount Forest 
township. Bay County, which he had purchased 
the previous year. At that time there was not 
another settler in the neighborhood, and the 
country was undeveloped. He removed the 
stumps from the land and with them erected 
fences; he built a good dwelling, barns and 
other outbuildings, and made his farm a very 
valuable property. He originally had 120 acres 
in the tract, but has disposed of 40 acres. He 
is a man of high character and enjoys the 
friendship of many acquaintances. 

In 1861, Mr. Wilson was united in mar- 
riage with Isabelle Rolls, who was born in 
Scotland and is a daughter of William and 
Isabelle (Hayes) Rolls, both of whom were 
born and died in Edinburgh, Scotland. She 
was 12 years of age when w'ith her only 
brother she accompanied an uncle and aunt to 
Canada. She lived there four years, then came 
to Michigan alone. Her brother, James Rolls, 
was one of the pioneers of Freemont, Michi- 
gan, locating there just two years later than 
our subject. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson became 
parents of 14 children, as follows: James, born 
December 2. 1862; Ambrose, born February 
4, 1865; Caroline, born May 27, 1867, de- 
ceased; Mary Ann, born November 7, i86g; 
Oscar, born October 12, 1872; Emma, born 

23 



January 5, 1874; Clarence, born November 4, 
1877; one who died in infancy; Jennie, born 
February 22, 1880; Polly, born July 11, 1882; 
Ernest, born June 11, 1884; Ethel, born May 
18, 1886; Agnes, horn March 10, 1889; and 
Gladys, born March 19, 1S91. Religiously, the 
family are members of the Christian church. 
Mr. Wilson is a Republican in politics, and has 
been a member of the Knights of the ^Macca- 
bees since July, 1890. 




ILLIAM G. ROECKER, one of the 
prosperous farmers of Bay Coun- 
ty, Michigan, whose portrait ac- 
companies this sketch, owns a farm 
of 60 acres of valuable land in section 19, town- 
ship 14, range 6, in Hampton township. He 
was born in Winenden, Wurtemberg, Ger- 
many, December 28, 1830, and is a son of 
Godlob Roecker. 

The father of our subject died in his native 
land in 1856, aged 65 years, and the mother, 
when her son William G., was quite young. 
The family consisted of three sons and two 
daughters, but our subject is the only one now 
living. The father, whose business it was to 
prepare cloth to be handled by tailors, had his 
own shop. He served in the war against 
France in 18 14, and lived and died a loyal 
adherent of the German crown. 

William G. Roecker came to America, with 
a sister, in 1852. From the age of 14 years 
he had worked as a turner and he found em- 
ployment in Philadelphia, where he lived for 
three years and then came to Michigan. He 
reached Bay City, or Lower Saginaw as the 
place was then known, in 1855 and was soon 
employed on the docks and in sawmills. In 
1858 he purchased his first land — 40 acres of 
his present farm — to which he later added 10 



512 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



acres more and still later another tract of lo 
acres. He now owns a first-class, productive 
little farm on which he has made many sub- 
stantial improvements. When he came to this 
tract the first time, the timber was so dense 
and the underbrush so heavy that he and his 
companion, Joseph Shinier, had to cut a road 
in order to reach the place. He has lived to 
see wonderful changes and has done his part 
in advancing the development of his locality. 

In 1855, Mr. Roecker was married to Ro- 
sanna Kurz, who was born in Winenden, Wur- 
temberg, Germany, and died on the home farm, 
in Hampton township, in 1899, aged 'jz 3'ears 
They had four children : Carrie, who died aged 
15 years; a babe which died in infancy; and 
Mary and William, both of whom live at home. 

Mr. Roecker has always been a Democrat 
and has held township offce, serving many 
years on the School Board and for seven years 
was township treasurer. He is well-known as 
one of Hampton township's honest and upright 
men and good and representative citizens. 




A\'. KXAGGS, senior member of the 
firm of Knaggs & Plum, general in- 
surance agents at Bay City, Michigan, 
has resided here since 1865, and is the 
oldest insurance man in the city. Mr. Knaggs 
v.-as born in Monroe County, ^Michigan, August 
28, 1840, and is a son of Johnson and Sarah 
Louisa (Woods) Knaggs. 

There is probably no family which has, 
been more closely identified with the early his- 
tory of Michigan and also of Ohio, than that 
to which our subject bel(jngs. The remarkable 
records of the family have been preserved, 
more or less intact, from 1760. A history of 
this numerous and notable family was issued 
by R. B. Ross, and from this reliable authority 



we are permitted to make selections and to place 
Ijefore the readers of this work records of the 
men and women of a past generation, whose 
strong characters and gentle virtues, whose 
noble lives and self-sacrificing deeds have caused 
their names to still be remembered when others 
of their day have been forgotten. 

"The record of the Knaggs family of Ohio 
and Michigan is a part of the history of the 
Northwest. Springing from English and 
Dutch forebears, its descendants represent the 
best traits of both races, and as patroits in war 
and good citizens in peace, they are the peers of 
any contemporary family in the States." 

In 1760 George Knaggs, son of an English 
father and a W'elsh mother, probably a sea-far- 
ing man and possibly an English officer, mar- 
ried Rachel Sly, a lady born in the Mohawk 
Valley, New York, then apparently living in 
Philadelphia. From there they removed to the 
Mauniee Valley in Ohio, and settled near the 
site of Fort Miami, which is about nine miles 
from the new Court House at Toledo. At this 
time trading with the Indians was the only 
gainful occupation in that locality, and in this 
commerce he and his wife engaged. In 1768 he 
visited Detroit and was one of a syndicate of 
four, who purchased a lot of land on ^^•llat is 
now Jefferson avenue, but there is no evidence 
that he remained in Detroit, and every indica- 
tion that he returned to the Maumee Valley. 
He prospered financially and between 1763 and 
1784 he and his wife had eight children born 
to them. The records tell that this lady was 
accomplished far beyond her sex in that day and 
even understood Latin. As she was a devout 
Catholic, it is possible that her education was 
acc|uired in some cloister school. 

Until the destruction of their trading post, 
in the battle of Fallen Timbers, on August 20, 
1794, the Knaggs family seem to have gained a 
footing in the Maumee \\alley, but the venge- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



513 



ful savages had been so aroused that it became 
evident that no business could be again done 
for a long period in the valley, and the old pio- 
neer turned to Detroit, whither his son George 
had already gone. The elder Knaggs did not 
profit by the change, his failure to again re- 
sume his old relations with the Indians being 
probably due to his age, as he was then past 
60. His health gave way as his energies werq 
lessened, and, although the date of his death is 
in doubt, it probably was early in 1797 as in 
that year his will was probated. In 1800 his 
wife Rachel preferred her claim before the Uni- 
ted States Land Board as owner of 275 "ar- 
pents," which claim was allowed. Our subject 
has still in his possession a parchment bearing 
the signatures of James Madison, President, and 
James Monroe, Secretary of State, under date 
of May 30, 181 1, granting to her 259 acres on 
the north side of the Raisin River. This is 
probably a patent of the same property as 275 
arpents are about equal to 259 acres. 

This remarkable lady had many cruel hard- 
ships to bear and some harrowing experiences. 
After the battle of the Raisin, on January 22, 
1813, in which General Proctor defeated the 
American force under General Winchester and 
permitted the Indians to massacre the Kentucky 
and other troops whom he had taken prisoners, 
she was brave enough to shelter an escaping 
soldier under a hogshead. General Proctor 
learned of this act of h\imanity and ordered her 
to leave Frenchtown. It was a bitter cold day 
and she was 80 years of age. The British gen- 
eral knew that she was the mother of sons who 
were enemies of his cause and vented his un- 
manly spite against them on her defenceless 
head. He commanded her to leave for Detroit. 

The historian Lossing speaks thus of this 
historic incident, this blot upon General Proc- 
tor's fame : "Thinly clad, having been robbed 
by the Indians, she proceeded to Detroit in an 



open traineau. where she found several friends 
and relatives. When asked how it happened 
that she did not freeze, she replied, 'my spunk 
kept me warm.' " 

Mrs. Knaggs subsequently returned to her 
home in Frenchtown and later moved to her 
farm on the Raisin, seven miles above ^Monroe. 
For several years she kept a store at Green Bay, 
Wisconsin, to which she paid periodical visits. 
She dealt in furs principally and also largely 
in bear oil. It is certain that she died in 181 5 
as her will was admitted to probate on July ist 
of that year. Her death occurred in all prob- 
ability at Green Bay, Wisconsin. 

Maj. James Knaggs, the sixth child of 
George and Rachel Knaggs, was born at Roche 
de Boeuf, a small hamlet on the Maumee River, 
some three miles above the site of Fort Miami. 
No record of his birth or baptism has been dis- 
covered, but it is known that it must have been 
in 1780. From childhood until early manhood 
he was surrounded by war's alarms and wit- 
nessed many scenes not fitted for youthful eyes. 
W'arfare was continual, Indian massacres num- 
erous, until peace was declared between Great 
Britain and the United States and the evacua- 
tion of Detroit in 1796. Reared upon this 
theater of blood and carnage, it is not remark- 
able that he should have developed the courage 
and acuteness, which made him a trusted scout 
and spy at the early age of 14 yeras. 

This position he filled with General Wayne's 
army at the battle of Fallen Timbers. In 1805 
he \\-as appointed by Governor Hull, ensign in 
the Second Michigan Regiment of militia. In 
that year he acquired a farm on the Raisin, 
about a mile above Frenchtown, and married 
Jemima Griffith. Like his mother, his wife was 
of Dutch descent and was born also in the Mo- 
hawk Valley in New York She bore one child, 
in 1806, but flied shortly after. 

So remarkable was the personal appearance 



5U 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



of Major Knaggs that a description of it has 
been carefully preserved. He was a Hercules, 
six feet in height, weighing i8o pounds, lithe 
and active as the wild creatures of the woods 
with whom he had become well acquainted; 
his hair was brown, and his dark blue eyes were 
full of intelligence and showed mental force. 
His teeth were all double and he never lost one, 
as they remained perfect to the day of his 
death. He possessed many of the traits of the 
Indian, was a swift and untiring runner, a 
champion wrestler, and excelled every Indian 
in his knowledge of woodcraft. In war he was 
crafty, acute, courageous and resourceful and 
in civil life he was a man of untiring energy 
and industry. Like many men of his rearing, 
remarkable as it may appear, he was kind and 
courteous in manner, frank and outspoken in 
intercourse with others, and possessed a vast 
fund of anecdote which he gave in his own ini- 
mitable, humorous way. 

In politics, Major Knaggs was a Democrat, 
and at all times an outspoken patriot. In re- 
ligion he was a Presbyterian. In 1806 he left 
his farm and operated a ferry on the Huron 
River, on the road to Detroit, about 12 miles 
north of Monroe. He also kept an inn near his 
ferry, which was in charge of his second wife, 
Pelagia ("Polly") Roberts, who was a daugh- 
ter of Anthony and Theresa (Drouillard) Rob- 
erts. She was a woman of undaunted courage, 
which found many opportunities for exhibition 
in her dealings with the Indians. 

Major Knaggs' experiences read like the 
chapters in Cooper's "Leatherstocking Tales," 
or in the later work "The Crossing," in fact 
he might have been the real hero of the fanciful 
adventures of this romance. At one time he 
was captured by the Indians, who to revenge 
the death of several of their tribe, whom he had 
killed in self-denfense. condemned him to be 
burned at the stake. They bound him to the 



trunk of a tree and piled resinous wood around 
him, when one of the old squaws drew near and 
looked at him earnestly with a pitying expres- 
sion. She was the mother of a young brave he 
had slain not long before. When the Indian 
drew near with his blazing torch to light the 
fire, the old squaw pushed him aside and held 
up a belt of wampum in her hand, put it around 
the victim's neck and with a caress said : "You 
are my son." This, according to Indian cus- 
tom and ethics, was equivalent to an adoption 
and always saved a victim's life. 

Major Knaggs served the American Army 
efficiently as scout and spy during the War of 
181 2. He was one of the eight selected by the 
Americans in Detroit, after the receipt of the 
news of the defeat of the British at Put-in-Bay 
b)' Commodore Perry, to go to the victorious 
officer and ask him to bring his ships to Detroit. 
In the campaign which commenced with the re- 
treat of Proctor from Amherstburg to Detroit, 
James Knaggs was always in the front as scout 
and spy, under the command of Col. Richard 
M. Johnson, afterward Vice-President of the 
United States. In the political campaign of 
1840, when the Democrats were led by Van 
Buren and Colonel Johnson, for a second term,. 
James Knaggs and Medward Labadie, his re- 
lative and comrade, were political quantities,, 
were always seated on the speaker's platform 
and were introduced as the brave men who had 
carried Colonel Johnson off the field of battle 
at the time Tecumseh was slain. In his latter 
days he removed from his farm to the city of 
Monroe, where he lived until his death, which 
occurred December 23, i860, at the age of 80 
years. He was married three times and our 
subject's father was the fourth child of the sec- 
ond marriage. 

Johnson Knaggs, father of our subject, was 
born in Raisinville township in 181 6. A num- 
ber of Indians lived in that vicinity and when a_ 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



515 



boy he played peacefully with the Indian chil- 
dren and learned to speak their language. He 
■\vas fairly well educated for those days and al- 
ways lived and worked on the farm. He was 
one of the first in Monroe County to make lime 
and he furnished it in large quantities to the 
builders of Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor and other 
cities. In his latter years he attended to his 
farm exclusively and accumulated a handsome 
competence. He was a cheerful, clean-cut gen- 
tleman, with a sunny, optimistic disposition, 
and was capable and clear-headed to the end of 
his 84th year. He was christened Johnson, but 
was always known as John Knaggs, being 
named for Col. Richard M. Johnson, the re- 
puted slayer of Tecumseh. He married Sarah 
Louisa Woods, who was born in Rushford, 
Allegany County, New York. At the time they 
became acquainted, she was visiting relatives in 
Monroe County, Michigan. She died in 1889 
and he survived but one year. 

J. W. Knaggs, of Bay City, was educated in 
the common schools and in the State Normal 
School at Ypsilanti, Michigan, where he was 
graduated in i860. During the ensuing winter 
he taught school, but on the first call to arms 
he enlisted as a private in the Smith Guards at 
Monroe. They were sent to Adrian, where 
they became Company A, Fourth Reg., Mich- 
igan Volunteer Inf., and were sent to the front. 
At about five o'clock in the afternoon on the 
day of the battle at Malvern Hill, in July. 1S62, 
Mr. Knaggs was wounded in the arm, but, with 
others wounded, he had to bear his sufferings 
until the close of the battle without attention. 
He was then carried to the old iirick ]\Ialvern 
House, where his arm was amputated after 
dark and there he remained seven days. Dur- 
ing this time the Union troops withdrew and 
the Confederate pickets were advanced until the 
old house was within tlieir line. ]\Ir. Knaggs 
and other sick and wounded soldiers, thus made 



prisoners, were bundled off to Libby Prison. 
During his month there he experienced every 
hardship and suffering, to which his terrible 
condition particularly exposed him. At last the 
time came when the prisoners were sent through 
the lines to Petersburg, comnig out at Harri- 
son's Landing, on the James River, where they 
were exchanged and taken aboard transports 
for New York, our subject at last coming under 
real medical attention at Bellevue Hospital, 
New York. From neglect, his arm was by 
that time in a terrible condition, gangrene hav- 
ing set in. He was placed in a tent and was 
given the personal care of the head physician of 
the staff, who by unremitting labors saved his 
life. After his discharge, he returned to Mon- 
roe, where he became a bookkeeper in the Mc- 
Laren machine shops and continued there un- 
til 1865, when he established himself in Bay 
City. 

At Bay City, Mr. Knaggs entered the em- 
ploy of John Drake, the pioneer fire insurance 
agent of Bay City, with whom he remained one 
year and then entered into partnership with C. 
H. Dennison, an attorney, who also handled the 
insurance business of Henry W. Sage, the well- 
known lumberman of West Bay City. He has 
been in business under the firm stvles of 

Whittemore & 
Later 

the business was consolidated with the insur- 
ance business of Daniel Shannon, the firm name 
becoming Knaggs, Whittemore & Shannon, and 
continued thus until Mr. Whittemore's death, 
when the firm became Knaggs & Shannon. 
Later this partnership was dissolved and Mr. 
Knaggs engaged in business alone for about 
two years and then the firm of Ivnaggs & Clark 
was established, which continued two years 
more. A. G. Plum then purchased an interest 
and the firm became Knaggs. Clark & Plum. 
Two years later, Mr. Clark withdrew and since 



Knaggs & Dennison 



Knaggs, 



Dennison, then Knaggs & Whittemore. 



5i6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



that time the business has been conducted by 
the firm of Knaggs & Phim. They represent 
the following companies : American Fire, of 
Philadelphia; American, of New Jersey; Con- 
tinental Fire, of New York; Fire Association, 
of Philadelphia ; Michigan Fire & ]\Iarine, of 
Detroit ; Milwaukee Mechanics', of Wisconsin ; 
North British & ]\lercantile, of England; St. 
Paul Fire & Marine ; \\'illiamsburg City, of 
New York; Westchester Fire, of New York; 
Lloyd's Plate Glass, of New York ; Hartford 
Steam Boiler; Standard Life & Accident, of 
Detroit ; Preferred Accident, of New York ; 
and National Surety Company, of New York. 
jNIr. Knaggs was married June 9, 1869, to 
INIariette Stocking, who was born December 
14, 1S47, ^"d is a daughter of Dr. Charles G. 
Stocking, of Spring Lake, New York. Their 
children are; W'alter W., of Detroit; Roy S., 
of New York City; Camilla, wife of Dr. H. 
McLennan, of Petoskey, Michigan ; and ]\Iary, 
Avife of Allen H. Stone, of Chicago. 

The Stocking ancestrj- reaches back to the 
early settlement of New England, even to 
George Stocking, who was born in Suffolk, 
England, in 1582 and crossed the ocean to 
America with his wife and four children on 
the ship Grif^n in 1633. He settled in 
Cambridge, Massachusetts, where, in 1635, he 
built a house at the corner of the present Holy- 
oke and W^inthrop streets. He was made a 
freeman Alay 6, 1635. He joined the company 
of Rev. Thomas Hooker and traveled on foot 
through the wilderness to Connecticut in 1636, 
and was one of the original founders and a 
prominent proprietor of Hartford, Connecticut. 
In the general distribution of land, he received 
20 acres and later was given other grants. After 
the death of his wife, Anna, whom he had mar- 
ried in England, an authority says he married 
Agnes (Shotwell) W'ebster, the widow of John 
Webster, governor of the colony. From the 



beginning he took an active part in public 
afifairs; was selectman in 1647; surveyor of 
highways in 1654 and 1662; chimney viewer in 
1659. but owing to his age was excused from 
military duty. He died 'May 2',. 1683. aged 
loi years. His name is inscribed on a large 
monument erected in memory of Hooker's 
party, which still stands in the old Center 
Church burying-ground in Hartford, where 
also rests the dust of the ancestors of some of 
the most distinguished men and women of 
the present generation. 

Deacon Samuel Stocking, son of George 
Stocking, was born in England and came to 
America with his father. In 1650 he removed 
from Hartford to Middletown, Connecticut, 
and became one of the founders of the town and 
was one of the three signers to the Indian 
deed of Middletown. He was the first deacon 
of the church organized there in 1668 and was 
a representative in the State Assembly in 
1658-59-65-69-74-77 and 81. He died Decem- 
ber 3, 1683, and his widow later married James 
Steele of Hartford. Deacon Samuel Stocking 
was a sergeant in King Philip's \\'ar. His 
Ijusiness as ship-owner and builder brought 
him a large fortune for that time ; his estate at 
his death inventoried £648, 8s., 8d. On May 
2j. 1652, he married Bethia Hopkins, daugh- 
ter of John and Jane Hopkins, and grand- 
daughter of Samuel Hopkins, one of the sign- 
ers of the "Mayflower" compact in 1620. The 
last named was a member of Capt. Miles 
Standish's military company in 1621 ; was sent 
l;y Governor Bradford with Edward Winslow 
(afterward Governor Winslow) on a special 
mission to Massasoit, the Indian chief; was a 
member of the Governor's Council from 1632 
to 1636; and was a member of the council of 
war for Plymouth in 1643. 

George Stocking, son of Deacon Samuel 
Stocking, was born February 20, 1664. Prior 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



5^7 



to 1770 he moved from Upper Middletown to 
wliat is now Portland, Connecticut. He ap- 
pears to ha\-e been a man of affairs and was one 
of a committee appointed to build a church in 
1 710. He died February 17, 1714, leaving an 
estate of ^359. 9s., id. His widow afterwards 
married Deacon Samuel Hall, and died No- 
vember 16, 1787. 

Capt. George Stocking, son of George 
Stocking, was born August 16, 1705 and re- 
sided in Middle Haddam, where he died in 
1790. On March i, 1727, he married Mary 
(Mercy) Savage. Prior to 1740 he owned a 
grist-mill. In 1752 he was captain of militia. 
He served in the "Le.xington Alarm" in Capt. 
Eleazer Hubbard's company, which marched 
from Glastonbury, Connecticut. 

Capt. Abner Stocking, son of Capt. George 
Stocking, was born April i, 1726, followed the 
sea and lived in Middle Haddam, Connecticut. 
On May 6, 1775, he joined Capt. Ezekiel 
Scott's second company which was in Brig.- 
Gen. Joseph Spencer's regiment. He marched 
to Roxbury, Massachusetts, was in the siege of 
Boston and fought at Bunker Hill. He was 
then assigned to the forces in Arnold's expedi- 
tion against Quebec, and was taken prisoner 
by the British December 31, 1775. but was re- 
leased and then honorably discharged. During 
the Revolution he sailed from New York in a 
privateer, commanding his vessel, and was one 
of the leaders in the Point Judith expedition. 
He was commanding captain of the Sixth Com- 
pany of the 23d Regiment Connecticut ^Militia, 
Alarm List, in April, 1780. On February 8, 
1749 he married Ruth Higgins. 

Rev. Benjamin Stocking, son of Capt. Ab- 
ner Stocking, was baptized July 15, 1770. He 
resided many 3'ears at Chatham, Connecticut, 
and was a Methodist minister. He died at 
Fabius, New York, September 13, 1848, aged 
78 years. In August, 1789, he married Dimies 



Shaler, of Haddam, who died May 25, 1841. 

Rev. George Abner Stocking, grandfather 
of Mrs. Knaggs, was born in East Haddam, 
Connecticut, October 11, 1796. In early life 
he worked as a drug clerk and clock-maker, 
but was later ordained a minister in the Meth- 
odist Church. He was a man of vigorous in- 
tellect and was logical in the application of the 
doctrines he espoused. He was a man of dig- 
nified presence. Later in life he served many 
years as a justice of the peace at Montezuma, 
New York, where he died December 21, 1869. 
On December 26, 181 3, he married Tryphena 
Coe, who was born at Chatham, Connecticut, 
and died September 4, 1863. He married as 
his second wife Sarah D. Mack. 

Dr. Charles Giles Stocking, father of Mrs. 
Knaggs, was born June 23, 1822, and died 
June 8, 1898. On December 25, 1844, he mar- 
ried Mary Woodhull. He resided at different 
times at Penn Yan. Seneca Falls, Montezuma 
and Westburg, New York. He was an emi- 
nent member of his profession, and a man of 
splendid address and benevolent disposition. 
His best strength and most intelligent efforts 
were always given to the poor from whom he 
expected no return. He found his compensa- 
tion in the satisfaction of relieving human suf- 
fering and comforting the desolate. 

Mrs. Knaggs is worthy of this illustrious 
ancestry. She has long been prominent in 
Michigan public life. For several years she 
was one of the capable, competent and thor- 
oughly interested guardians of the ^Michigan 
Industrial Home for Girls, at Adrian. For 
four years she was president of the State 
Equal Suffrage Association and for several 
years was a member of the board of directors 
of the Home of Industry for Discharged Pris- 
oners, at Detroit, tier ability as a writer, her 
fluency as a speaker and her organizing and 
administrative capacity, have placed her in the 



5i8 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



fore-front of intellectual reform and philan- 
thropic movements. She was one of the first 
of her sex to be honored with membership on 
the Bay City Board of Education. She is a 
lady of much charm of manner, possessing all 
the feminine qualities in addition to a facility 
for handling public matters with masculine 
strength of mind. 

I\Ir. Knaggs is a member of H. P. Merrill 
Post, No. 419, G. A. R., of which he is at 
present commander. Since the days of Abra- 
ham Lincoln he has been identified with the 
Republican party. He has been active in ad- 
vancing the interests of Bay City. He was one 
of a company of six capitalists, who started the 
first beet sugar factory in Bay City. 




RANK GRISWOLD WALTON, jus- 
tice of the peace and attorney-at-law, 
located at West Bay City, Michigan, 
was born at Chardon, Geauga Coun- 
ty, Ohio, ^larch 5, 1857, and is a son of Dr. 
Andrew J. and Caroline F. (Griswold) Wal- 
ton. 

The \\'alton family is a very old one and 
has had many distinguished members. Ac- 
cording to a history which has been carefully 
compiled by the brother of our subject, it origi- 
nated in England where the record of its coat 
of arms may still be seen. In the days of Will- 
iam Penn five brothers of the name settled in 
Pennsylvania. George Walton, one of the 
signers of the Declaration of Independence, 
was a member of this family. Another noted 
member was Izaak Walton, whose quaint old 
"Compleat Angler" has been the guide and in- 
spiration of several generations of fishermen. 

James Walton, the paternal grandfather, 
was born at Saybrook, Ohio, the family having 
probably been established in that State in the 



time of his father. As one of the early pio- 
neers, he subsequently came to Michigan, where 
he died in 1896, aged 92 years. His son. Dr. 
Andrew J. Walton, was born in 1829, at Say- 
brook, Ohio, and died May i, 1886, in Bay 
County, Michigan. He graduated in medicine 
from the Western Reserve Medical College, at 
Cleveland, Ohio, having prepared himself dur- 
ing the time he officiated as sherifif of Geauga 
County. In 1873 ^^^ came West and settled 
at Almont, Lapeer County, Michigan, where 
he devoted all his time to the practice of his 
profession until 1879, when he removed to 
Bay City. Shortly after locating here, he was 
appointed keeper of the Bay County Poor 
Farm, a position he held for a number of years 
until the death of his wife caused him to resign. 
During the Civil War, Dr. Walton enlisted in 
Colonel Berdan's famous regiment of United 
States Sharpshooters, and remained in the 
service three years, being wounded on several 
occasions. He was a noted shot, having the 
true eye and steady nerve requisite for a sharp- 
shooter. Our subject recalls many instances 
of his unerring aim. He was a member of the 
U. S. Grant Post, No. 67, G. A. R., at Bay 
City, and the branch known as \\^alton's com- 
mand was named in his honor. Like the ma- 
jority of the intelligent and responsible men of 
his day, he was a Mason, .entering into fra- 
ternal relations at Chardon, Ohio. At the time 
of his death he was a member of Bay City 
Lodge, No. 129, F. & A. M., of which he was 
past master. He belonged also to Blanchard 
Chapter, R. A. ]\I., and his wife belonged to the 
affiliated Order of the Eastern Star. 

The death of his wife was a great blow to 
Dr. Walton, one from which he ne\-er recov- 
ered. She was a daughter of Timothy Gris- 
wold, and was born at Middletown, Connecti- 
cut. They had two sons, — Frank Griswold 
and Clifford Stevens. The latter is a prominent 





HARRY GRISWOLD 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



521 



attorney at Washington, D. C, who has gained 
considerable fame as a government translator. 
His translation from Spanish of "The Civil 
Law in Spain and Spanish .America" is a stand- 
ard work. 

Our subject attended the common schools 
of his native county and began to turn his at- 
tention to music while still a schoolboy. His 
talent was such as to make it seem expedient 
for him to devote his whole attention to that 
science and he continued its study and prac- 
tice after the family removed to Almont, Mich- 
igan, where he was elected leader of the band. 
In 1879 he came to Bay City as first cornetist 
of the old Knight Templar Band, of which he 
continued a member until it was disbanded. 
After settling here, Mr. Walton was led to take 
up the study of the law and under the encour- 
agement and direction of the late John W. 
McMath he prepared for the bar and was ad- 
mitted to practice on December 12, 1893. Dur- 
ing the years 1895 and 1896 he served as cir- 
cuit court commissioner and was city comp- 
troller of West Bay City during 1898, 1899 
and 1900. In the spring of 1904 he was elected 
justice of the peace for a term of four years 
and has given efficient service in that position 
ever since. For a number of years he served 
as a member of the Board of Supervisors and 
has also been city assessor of West Bay City. 
Politically he is a stanch Republican and is 
prominent in all party movements. 

In 1883, Mr. Walton was married to Isa- 
bella Murdock, who was born at Almont, La- 
peer County, Michigan, and was a daughter of 
John Murdock of that place. Mrs. Walton 
died SeptemJjer 4, 1904, leaving three children : 
Nora Belle. Clifford F. and Anna V. Mrs. 
Walton was a beloved member of the West- 
minster Presbyterian Church, of which Mr. 
\\'alton is also a member. 

For many years our subject has l)cen con- 



nected with the leading fraternal organiza- 
tions. He belongs to Wenona Lodge No. 256, 
F. & A. M. ; Blanchard Chapter, R. A. M.; 
Bay City Commandery, No. 26, K. T. ; Othello 
Lodge, No. 116, Knights of Pythias; Phcenix 
Tent, No. 8, I-Cnights of the Modern Macca- 
bees ; Royal Arcanum ; Independent Order of 
Foresters and the Musicians' Union, No. 127. 
For more than 20 years, Mr. Walton was 
a successful band leader. The Third Regi- 
ment and Walton's military bands were under 
his leadership and he has visited many parts of 
the country with these well-known organiza- 
tions. He has also been a teacher of instru- 
mental music and has had pupils from all over 
the State. 



ARRY GRISWOLD, a citizen of Bay 
City, Michigan, whose portrait is 
herewith shown, has been identified 
with the city's interests since the early 
days when her commercial importance was rep- 
resented by the trading done in what was then 
the only business center — \\"ater street — and 
its magnificent proportions presented only a 
landscape of forest and brush. The intervening 
years lia\-e wrought wonders of improvement, 
due to the energy and capital of citizens like 
Mr. Griswold. He was born September 25, 
1820, at Geneva, New York, and is a son of 
Joseph and Anna (Thomas) Griswold. 

Joseph Griswold was born August 2. 1776, 
in Grafton County, New Hampshire, and died 
in 1853. His wife was also of New England 
birth", born at Lebanon, Connecticut, April 21, 
1776, and deceased A])ril 20. 1847. They mar- 
ried in New Hampshire, September 15, 1797, 
and became the parents of seven children, viz : 
Nancy, born February 29, 1798; Amanda, born 
December 22, 1799; John, born November 22, 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



1803 : Joseph. Jr., born December 6, 1805 ; Fan- 
ny, born December 29, 1807; William, born 
December 16, 1809; and Harry, born Septem- 
ber 25, 1820. 

Mr. Griswokl was reared on his father's 
farm, and possibly his subsequent robust health 
and continued vigor may be, in a measure, at- 
tributable to this healthful early life. His edu- 
cation was secured in the old log school house 
near his father's home in Orleans County, 
whither the family had moved when our sub- 
ject was six months old, and he retains many 
recollections of those early school days. The 
teacher "boarded round" in those days. In 
order that the students might enjoy the benefits 
of his instruction, they had to take a little phys- 
ical exercise in the way of bringing in wood for 
the great open fireplace, which was the usual ac- 
companiment to the puncheon floor and split- 
slab benches. He also attended subscription 
school at the little hamlet of Murray, which 
has now grown into the town of Kendall. Aft- 
er he had reached man's estate, he carried the 
mail between Murray and Clarendon, covering 
the distance of 20 miles on horseback, and he 
also worked with his brother William on the 
latter's farm. Later he was variously employed 
in the occupations open to young men in his 
locality, these being for the most part lumber- 
ing, work in saw-mills and farming, until 1846, 
when he removed to Lapeer County, Michigan. 

Mr. Griswokl was accustomed to a heavily 
timbered country and when he located in Mich- 
igan the surrounding forest was quite to his 
liking, and he soon had four acres cleared for 
farming. To this he added, neighbors came 
shortly afterward and the little settlement grew 
into Barrows Corners, now the prosperous town 
of Metamora. Mr. Griswold embraced the 
opening for a store and carried on a general 
mercantile business until he decided to seek a 
wider field and moved to Lapeer, and still later 



to Bay City, reaching the latter place in 1865, 
finding business conditions promising but in 
the state mentioned in our opening paragraph. 
Here he embarked in a general mercantile busi- 
ness which he carried on for a number of years, 
in the meantime interesting himself in real es- 
tate and pushing forward public improvements. 
He built many of the substantial business 
houses here, the Union Block and the Griswold 
Block and many fine resider.ces. including the 
first brick house on Center avenue, at the corner 
of Farragut street, and, later, his own magnifi- 
cent brick mansion at Xo. 161 1 Center avenue. 

Mr. Griswold has been the financial backer 
of many enterprises here, and has been con- 
nected with every bank, with one exception, and 
his aid and ad\'ice has been noted in the greater 
number of the successful industries of this city. 
Practically retired from active participation in 
business, he still conducts his own afifairs and 
looks personally after his investments. 

Mr. Griswold was married January? i, 1847, 
at Metamora, Lapeer County, Michigan, to 
Anna Eliza Perkins, who was born in 1825 in 
New York, and they ha-\-e two children : Al- 
bert B, and Frances Elizabeth. The former, 
who is a merchant in Bay City, married Ro- 
sella Chapman and they have two children : 
Elizabeth R. and Jennie. Frances Elizabeth 
is the wife of Dr. David F. Stone of Bay City, 
and they have two children : Anna R. and Al- 
bert F. 

i\Ir. Griswold is one of the leading members 
of the First Baptist Church of Bay City, one 
of the trustees for several years and has always 
been one of its most liberal supporters. He 
was instrumental in getting several of the lead- 
ing railroad lines through Bay City, and. in 
fact, has been identified prominently with the 
city's commercial, educational and social de- 
velopment far beyond the efforts of almost any 
other citizen. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



523 



a successful general 



OHN A. LINK 

farmer of Fraukenlust township, Bay 
County, Michigan, who owns 100 
acres in section 11, was born on his 
present farm February 6, 1858, and is a son of 
Casper and Anna Margaret (Stengel) Link. 

Casper Link was born in Rostall, Baiern, 
Germany, September 3. 1813, and learned the 
carpenter's trade in young manhood. He came 
to Bay county in 185 1 with his wife and one 
child and settled down on an uncleared farm, 
where he put up a log cabin, 16 by 30 feet in 
dimensions. Here the family lived for 10 years 
and then a fine home and two large barns were 
constructed. Fortunately game was still plenti- 
ful and the larder was usually well provided 
with meat, but when other supplies were 
wanted the father had to follow a trail to the 
river and go in a canoe to Saginaw. Mr. Link 
was one of the earliest settlers of Frankenlust 
township, where he died in 1878. He married 
Anna Margaret Stengel, who was born in 
Baiem, December 13, 1823, and still survives, 
a member of her son's household, a lady full of 
remembrances of the early days of this section. 
They had six children : George, who died in 
childhood; Anna Barbara (Mrs. Timm), of 
South Bay City: Katie (Mrs. Nunke), of Bay 
City; John A., of this sketch; John Jacob, a 
Methodist minister, located at Detroit ; and 
Barbara (Mrs. Erhardt), of Oklahoma City, 
Oklahoma. 

Our subject has always lived on the old 
home farm which he assisted to clear. He has 
made of it a splendid property and carries on 
general farming, making a specialty of raising 
sugar beets, and does a large business in fruit- 
growing. 

On November 8, 1884. Mr. Link was mar- 
ried to Barbara Kreuzer, who was born in 
Baiern, Germany, November 10, 1862, and 
came to Bay County, Michigan, in 1873, with 



her parents, John Jacob and Anna Margaret 
(Enser) Kreuzer, who lived the rest of their 
lives in this county. Our subject and wife have 
seven children: Clara, Herman, Walter, John, 
Oscar, Elmer and Selma. Mr. Link is a sup- 
porter of the Republican party. He is one of 
the leading members of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church in his vicinity. 




ERBERT ALFRED FADES, M. D. 
Although but 31 years old, the sub- 
ject of this sketch, who is a resident 
of Bay City, has alread become noted 
as a surgeon, and is ranked among the "com- 
ing" men in his profession. 

Dr. Fades was born in Sherman, Chautau- 
qua County, New York, in 1873. He pursued 
a course of study in the Sherman Academy, and 
subsequently studied medicine in the Baltimore 
Medical College. He then took up clinical 
work in the Maryland General Hospital, where 
he gained a valuable practical training. After 
this he completed a course in the Detroit Col- 
lege of Medicine, from which he was gradu- 
ated with the class of 1901. 

Having spent four years in collegiate study, 
Dr. Fades took special work under the tutor- 
ship of Dr. C. A. Ellis, of New York, which 
has proved of great service to him. 

Soon after obtaining his diploma. Dr. 
Fades opened an ol¥ice in Bay City, making a 
specialty of surgery. He has had remarkable 
success in the many critical operations he has 
performed. In cases of appendicitis, espec- 
ially, he has made his mark. He is accounted 
the most careful operator among the younger 
surgeons of the city. His general practice has 
been attended with most favorable results. 

Dr. Fades was married in New York to 
Myrtia J. Harrington, a lady of much culture- 



524 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and refinement. The Doctor is a member of 
the American Medical Association, the Michi- 
gan State Medical Society and the Bay County 
Medical Society. 




OSEPH LIJEWSKI, a well-known 
farmer of Monitor township, whose 
excellent farm is located in section 15, 
was born February 11, 1852, in Ger- 
many. He is a son of Anthony and Rosie 
■(Martynski) Lijewski. 

Anthony Lijewski was born in Germany in 
1832 and there died in 1892 at the age of 60 
years. He was a farmer all his life and had 
90 acres of land. He and his wife had 13 chil- 
dren, of whom but four are now living: Vin- 
cent, Peter, Stanislaus and Joseph. Peter 
served in the German Army, and now runs a 
grist-mill in the fatherland. 

In 1874 the subject of this sketch came to 
America and worked on a farm in Iowa. After 
•staying here two years, he went back to Ger- 
many and spent two years with the old folks. 
While there he was married. Upon his return 
to America, he proceeded to Wayne County, 
Michigan, where he was employed in firing 
-and engineering in a mill. In summer time he 
was a section hand on the railroad and, later, 
worked on boilers in the railroad shops. Leav- 
ing Wayne County, he came to Bay County 
and bought the farm on which he now lives. It 
was partly cleared and he finished the work, 
and afterward built a fine two-story l>rick house 
— large and very comfortable — and a barn of 
sufScient size to hold 100 head of cattle. He 
has 160 acres of land, of which 40 are in pas- 
ture and over 100 under cultivation. He fol- 
lows general farming. 

Mr. Lijewski was married in Wiatrowo, 
•Germany, in 1877, to Annie Kukla, a daughter 



of John and Mary (Slazinski) Kukla. Mrs. 
Lijewski's father and mother had 13 children, 
of whom four are deceased. Of the nine chil- 
dren living, Annie is the wife of our subject; 
Joseph lives in Kawkawlin township ; Stella, 
wife of Julian Sochacki, lives in Kawkawlin 
township; and Maria, Stanislaus, Prakseda, 
Kostancija, Antinana and Victoria li\'e in Ger- 
many on the home farm, their father owning 
27 acres of land. 

The subject of this sketch and his wife have 
had 13 children, of whom those living are as 
follows : Stanislaus, who lives at home ; Annie 
(Mrs. Kaczmarek), of Monitor township; and 
Rosie, John, Joseph, Anthony, Helen, Frank 
and Lucy, who are at home. The others died 
in infancy, and are buried in Monitor town- 
ship. 




OHN FOWLER, one o\ the leading cit- 
izens of Linwood, Bay County, Mich- 
igan, was born in Sullivan County, 
New York, July 7, 1825, and is a 
son of Edmond and Hannah (Townsend) 
Fowler. * 

The Townsend family as well as the 
Fowler family, is an old established one in the 
"Empire" State, but through family removals 
the old records have been lost and little is 
known of the grandfathers beyond the fact of 
their birth and decease in that section. Edmond 
Fowler and family moved to Albion, Michigan, 
in 1845, where he died aged 80 years and the 
death of his wife followed at the age of 75 
years. 

John Fowler was reared in an old settled 
section and had the advantage of good district- 
school opportunities. He was of a mechanical 
turn of mind and learned the trade of stationary 
engineer, one which he has followed during 
the greater part of his active years. He was 20 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



O^D 



years of age when the family moved to Michi- 
gan, and one year later he accepted work in 
Missouri and in Iowa, in various mills. He 
worked for three years in Adair County, Mis- 
souri, in one of the large sawmills there, and 
in 1857 returned to Albion, Michigan, and in 
1869 came to Bay City, where he followed his 
trade for 20 years. In 1890 Mr. Fowler en- 
gaged in business in Lin wood, and in 1892 ex- 
changed his home in Bay City for the hand- 
some residence he now occupies. This is by far 
the finest dwelling in the place, being finished 
with hard-wood throughout and fitted with 
modern improvements. Since coming here, Mr. 
Fowler has been interested in the operation of 
a stave-mill. 

While in Adair County, Missouri, Mr. 
Fowler was married to Emily Palmonia Cain, 
who is a daughter of John and Emily (Hill) 
Cain. The former was the first white settler 
in Adair County and participated in the Indian 
warfare on the border. He was a pensioner of 
the Black Hawk War and at the time of the 
great Indian uprising was one of the fighters 
in the block-house, at his home five miles from 
Kirksville. He married Emily Hill, who was 
born in Osage County, Missouri, and who died 
in Adair County, on the old homestead, at the 
age of 80 years. Mr. Cain lived to the age of 
65 years. He owned 1,000 acres of land 
in Missouri and was known far and wide. Be- 
side Mrs. Fowler, Mr. and Mrs. Cain reared 
these children : Jackson, who was a veteran of 
the Mexican W^ar ; Bathsheba, deceased ; 
George, a survivor of the Civil War, residing 
on the old homestead in Adair County; Mary 
and Ruth, both deceased, the latter dying in 
California; John, who died during his service 
in the Civil War ; and Philip, who resides in 
Missouri where he practices osteopathy. 

Mr. and Mrs. Fowler have had five children, 
viz: Jennie, who is the widow of Paul King; 



Minnie, who is the wife of Warren A. Chatfield 
of Bay City ; Frederick, who probably lost his 
life in the Spanish-American War; Frank, also 
deceased ; and one who died when about four 
years old. 

Politically, Mr. Fowler has always been 
identified with the Republican party, his asso- 
ciation being one of principle and not for politi- 
cal honors. He is one of tiie representative 
men of Linwood and is held in high esteem by 
his fellow-citizens. 




HARLES F. ENGELHARDT, who 
owns and operates a finely improved 
farm of 60 acres, situated in section 
25, Hampton township. Bay County, 
Michigan, was born in Hampton township, Oc- 
tober 16, 1859, and is a son of Michael and 
Katherine (Wistpinter) (Bridaur) Engel- 
hardt. 

Michael Engelhardt was born in Germany 
in 1827, and came to America in young man- 
hood. He followed farming all his life. His 
death took place on February 14, 1890, at the 
age of 62 years. He did not marry until 30 
years of age, and then was united to Mrs. Kath- 
erine (Wistpinter) Bridaur, who was born in 
Germany and who still survives, at the age of 
81 years, a resident of Hampton township. 
The three children of her marriage with Mr. 
Engelhardt are: Charles F., of this sketch; 
Frederick, of Hampton township; and Au- 
gust, of Portsmouth township. She had two 
children born to her first marriage : Caroline ; 
and a daughter that died in infancy. 

In 1885 our subject bought his present 
farm, which at that time was covered with 
burned stumps and heavy underbrush. He has 
cleared it all off and has placed it under a fine 
state of cultivation, has set out orchards and 



526 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



has as comfortable a residence and as substan- 
tial barns as any of his neighbors in his section. 
It has all been his own work as he has always 
been entirely dependent upon his own resources. 
On May i6, 1889, INIr. Engelhardt was 
married to Louisa Feinauer, who was born Sep- 
tember 16, 1863, and is a daugliter of Michael 
and Barbara (Sexlinger) Feinauer, natives of 
Germany. Fi\-e children have been l)orn to this 
union, namely : Lidia Annie : Elma Katherine ; 
Edward Martin ; Mabel Annie and Oscar John. 
Mr. Engelhardt and wife belong to the German 
Lutheran Church. Politically he is a Re- 
publican. 




OHN M. KELTON, one of the leading 
citizens and prominent business men 
of West Bay City. Michigan, presi- 
dent of the Lumberman's State Bank, 
president and treasurer of the Standard Hoop 
Company, and vice-president of the West Bay 
City Sugar Company, is a native of Pennsyl- 
vania, born in Chester County, in October, 
1840. 

Mr. Kelton came to Michigan in February, 
1867, locating at West Bay City where he has 
been more or less identified with the lumber 
interests ever since. During the Civil War he 
was engaged in a commission business at Phil- 
adelphia and prior to coming West had resided 
in his native State and New Jersey. 

The Standard Hoop Company, which is 
the largest industry of its kind in the country, 
has a plant at West Bay City that covers over 
10 acres and is completely equipped with mod- 
ern machinery. Its product is immense, the 
output being from 12,000,000 to 15,000,000 
hoops annually. Elm wood is used in the man- 
ufacture of these hoops and the raw material 
is secured all over the country. This plant has 
"been in successful operation since 1886 and em- 



ployment is given to 60 men and boys. In that 
year John M. Kelton, Harrison ]\liller and E. 
J. Kelton formed a partnership and built a mill 
which w-as put into operation in July of that 
year. In 1896 the business was organized 
under the name of the Standard Hoop Com- 
pany, for the manufacture of hoops and lum- 
ber, with this oflicial board : John M. Kelton, 
president and treasurer, and H. B. Aurand, sec- 
retary. 'Sir. Kelton devotes his personal atten- 
tion to the business and it is ranked as one of 
the most important industries of West Bay 
City. His other business interests, named in 
a preceding paragraph, are of an equally im- 
portant nature. 

Mr. Kelton married Mary E. Smith, a sis- 
ter of Capt. P. C. Smith, of West Bay City, 
and they have three children : Frank P. S., who 
is engaged with the West Bay City Sugar Corn- 
pan}- : Earl C, a student at Ithaca, New York, 
who is preparing to enter Cornell University ; 
and Sarah S., who is also at school. Mr. Kel- 
ton owns one of the handsome homes of West 
Bay City, situated at No. 408 \\'est Midland 
street. The family attend the Presbyterian 
Church. 

Politically, Mr. Kelton is identified with 
the Republican party. He has been a member 
of the Board of Education of West Bay City. 
He is a member of the Masonic fraternity. 




VERTON EDMUND MUNGER, 
one of the well-known architects of 
Bay City, Michigan, a member of the 
firm of Clark & IMunger. was born at 
York, Medina County, Ohio, May 25, 1867, 
and is a son of Wallace W. and Mary J. 
(Chase) Munger. 

The father of Mr. JNIunger was also a native 
of Medina County. He became a practical 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



527 



stone-mason and started in business for liimself 
in young manhood. He followed contracting 
in Medina County until 1880, when he turned 
his attention to veterinary surgery. After 
graduating at the Veterinary College at Tor- 
onto, in 1 88 1, he began practice at Galesburg. 
Kalamazoo County, Michigan, where he is still 
established. Dr. Munger married Mary J. 
Chase, who is a daughter of Edmund Chase. 
The Chase family was one well-known in New 
York, while the Plunger family came originally 
from Connecticut, where the grandfather, 
Averton Munger, was born in 1802. Dr. and 
Mrs. Munger had three children, the two sur- 
vivors being our subject and a sister, Mary A. 
The parents are members of the Congregational 
Church, in which Dr. Munger has been a dea- 
con for many years. 

Averton Edmund !\Iunger was given a good 
common-school education and then spent some 
time in teaching, at one period being an instruc- 
tor in the Galesburg High School, but his nat- 
ural inclinations led him in another direction. 
He took up the study of architecture in the 
office of his present partner, a sketch of whom 
will be found in this work. Later he devoted 
three years to the study of civil engineering, 
with George S. Pierson, of Kalamazoo, and 
then returned to Mr. Clark's office. His knowl- 
edge of civil engineering has made him a still 
better architect, for it is no drawback to be con- 
versant with both professions. From August, 
1893, to 1897, he practiced architecture at 
Saginaw, Michigan, and then closed out his 
business there to enter into partnership with 
Mr. Clark. This firm has done much of the 
architectural work which has given Bay City 
its fair name for stately and l^eautiful struc- 
tures. 

In 1892, Mr. Munger was married to Mary 
C. Sperry, who is a daughter of Lavaille P. 
Sperry, of Bay City. They have one daugh- 



ter, Lois M., a bright little maiden at school. 
The family belong to the Congregational 
Church. Fraternally, Mr. Munger is a Knight 
of Pythias, a member of Bay City Lodge, 
No. 23. 




APT. PETER C. SMITH. Among 
the prominent citizens of West Bay 
City. Michigan, is Capt. Peter C. 
Smith, president of the West Bay 
City Sugar Company, who has been more 
closely identified with many of the successful 
business enterprises of this section than any 
other individual. He was born at St. Clair, 
Michigan, May i, 1844, and is a son of Peter 
and Sarah (Cross) Smith. 

Few men in Bay County were better or more 
favorably known than the late Peter Smith. 
Born in Scotland, he accompanied his parents 
to Canada in childhood, and in young manhood, 
about 1836, he located at Port Huron, Michi- 
gan, where he was married to Sarah Cross two 
years later. In 1842 they removed to St. Clair 
and resided there for 12 years. Mr. Smith 
worked at his trade of millwright and built sev- 
eral of the first mills in that locality. In 1854 
he came to what is now Bay County and built a 
mill in what was then the hamlet of Bangor 
and what was later, until the union of the Bay 
Cities, the First Ward of W^est Bay City. He 
was a member of the mill-building firm of 
Moore, Smith & Vose, which later became 
Moore & Smith and of which he sul)sequently 
became sole proprietor. This firm then became 
Peter Smith & Sons and under this style did 
an immense business in this line. In 1864 he 
engaged in the production of salt and contin- 
ued his interest in this line until his death, No- 
vember 28, 1880. After that event, two of his 
sons, C. J. and H. J., carried on the business 
under the firm stvle of Smith Brothers. 



528 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Mr. Smith was survived by four children : 
C. J.. H. J.. Peter C, and Mrs. John M. Kel- 
ton, of West Bay City. Mrs. Smith survived 
until April, 1890, dying at the age of 81 years. 

Peter C. Smith was 10 years of age when 
his father removed to West Bay City and 
erected a sawmill. After completing his edu- 
cation eight years later, he worked four years 
in the mill and then started out to make his own 
way in the world, choosing a maritime career. 
Purchasing a small steamboat that plied on the 
Saginaw River, he managed it himself and later 
added a tug and a steamboat, this little fleet 
being the nucleus of what became the Saginaw 
Bay Towing Company. This company was a 
copartnership of Captain Smith and Capt. Ben- 
jamin Boutell and was entered into in 1884; 
the business developed into the largest towing 
business of any firm on the Great Lakes. The 
partners acquired interests in steamers on all 
the Lakes, a large barge line and a powerful 
fleet of tugs. A specialty was made of towing 
rafts to different points along the Canadian 
shore, in both peninsulas of Michigan north of 
the Saginaw River, and they delivered to the 
mills also on this river and at Detroit, Cleve- 
land, Buffalo and other Eastern points. They 
averaged 300,000,000 feet of logs per annum. 

Captain Smith was only 21 years of age 
when he secured his papers as captain and for 
years his rank was recognized on the water. In 
1883 he established a general store and coal 
docks in West Bay City and also became finan- 
cially interested in various manufacturing en- 
terprises, among which were a stave and head- 
ing mill at Gladwin, the West Bay City Sugar 
Company, and the Bay City Michigan Sugar 
Company. In March, 1902, he sold his inter- 
ests in the Saginaw Bay Towing Company to 
Captain Boutell. 

In 1864 Captain Peter C. Smith was mar- 
ried to Sarah I. Orton, who is a daughter of 



Thomas S. Orton, of Luzerne, New York. 
Their one son. Capt. Charles O. Smith, who 
married May Miller, of Bay City, is now en- 
gaged in looking after our subject's large farm- 
ing interests in Bay County. 

Captain Peter C. Smith has long been 
prominently identified with the various Ma- 
sonic bodies and is a 32d degree Mason. Form- 
erly he was a very active member of Bay City 
Commandery, No. 26, K. T. In 1891 he was 
one of the recipients of a very signal mark of 
fraternal esteem, being one of a party of 16 
Ivnights Templar invited by the Temple Com- 
mandery of Albany, New York, to partake of 
its hospitality on an excursion which included a 
two-months trip through the most interesting 
parts of Europe. 

During many years Captain Smith was an 
active politician here, serving four years as a 
member of the City Council and four years as a 
trustee. He has always been identified with 
the Republican party. His property and social 
interests are all centered in Bay County. His 
beautiful, modern home is situated at No. 701 
West Midland street, West Bay City. With 
his family he is connected with the Presbyterian 
Church. 




jlOHX P. ITTNER, whose farm of 320 
acres in Beaver township takes up one- 
half of section 27, is one of the pros- 
perous and intelligent farmers of the 
county. Mr. Ittner was born in 1856 in Frank- 
enlust township, which was then in Saginaw 
County, Michigan, but is now included in Bay, 
and is a son of John George and Margaret 
(Ouerox) Ittner. 

The father of Mr. Ittner was born in Ger- 
many and came in young manhood to America, 
where he subsequently married and settled, tak- 
ing up his home in Frankenlust township. Sag- 








HON. SYDNEY S. CAMPBELL 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



531 



inaw County (Now Bay County, Michigan), 
where he died aged 63 years. 

Jolm P. Ittner was educated in tlie scliools 
of Saginaw and Bay counties and was reared 
to be a practical farmer. He settled in Beaver 
township, Bay County, in 1883 and has been a 
representati\e man of the locahty for a long 
time. His fine farm is being gradually put 
under cultivation; about one-half of it is now 
improved. He is one of the leading Demo- 
crats of his section and has frequently Ijeen 
called upon to fill responsible ofiicial positions 
in the township. For three years he served 
as supervisor, for three years was clerk and for 
six years he was township treasurer. For 12 
years past he has been a school ofticer. Mr. 
Ittner is a man noted for his integrity and en- 
joys the full confidence of the public in his hon- 
esty and ability. 

In 1884 Mr. Ittner married Margaret B. 
Oeder, of Bangor township, who was born in 
Germany and came to Michigan with her 
parents when she was six years of age. They 
have had six children : Hannah, born February 
21, 1885; Andrew, born April 13, 1887; Chris- 
tina, born May 7, 1889: Frederick, born June 
15, 1891 ; Henry, born December i. 1894: and 
Elsie, born July 30, 1897. Mr. Ittner is a mem- 
ber and a liberal supporter of the German Lu- 
theran Church. 




ON. SYDNEY .S. C.\MPBELL. de- 
ceased, whose portrait accompanies 
this sketch, was one of the pioneer cit- 
izens of Bay County, Michigan, and 
located at Lower Saginaw (now Bay 
City) as early as 1838. He was actively iden- 
tified with the growth and progress of the com- 
munity, and conducted the first tavern here, 
long known as the Globe Hotel, which still 
stands. 

29 



Sydney S. Campbell was born in Paris, 
Oneida County, New York, February 29, 1804, 
and was a .son of Moses and Phoebe (Stewart) 
Campbell, being the youngest of five children. 
He was of Scotch descent. He received his 
early intellectual training in the common 
schools of his native county, then attended col- 
lege at Utica, New York, where he graduated 
from the law department. In 1830 he came to 
^lichigan, settling first at Pontiac and then at 
Cass River Bridge, where, in 1836, he laid out 
a town and called it Bridgeport, his partner in 
this venture being Judge G. D. Williams. A 
post office was established with himself as post- 
master, but the town was blighted by hard 
times in the winter of 1837-38. He was in- 
duced by James Fraser and Judge Williams to 
remove to the new city on the Saginaw, known 
as Lower Saginaw, and start a hotel. He ar- 
rived on March i, 1838, and the following day 
killed a large buck on the opposite side of the 
river, the last one seen by him for a period of 
five years. That month, as described by Judge 
Campbell afterward, was as warm as is usual 
for the month of June. His family lived in the 
block-house on the bank of the river for a short 
time until the ta\ern was completed, it being 
located on Water street, where it still stands as 
a relic of Bay City's early history. It was 
often difficult to get the provisions necessary 
for his table, but Judge Campbell was always a 
liberal provider. Often he found it necessary 
to paddle a canoe 16 miles to Saginaw for a 
pound of tea or some equally small article. A 
year or two after his arrival, he and his brother 
Harry l>orrowed the government team of oxen 
and plowed a piece of land near where the Fol- 
som (S; Arnold old sawmill stood, which they 
soued to buckwheat. When the time came to 
gather it, he and his wife would go down the 
ri\er in a canoe to the field, and as they pro- 
ceeded he would shoot ducks, which were plen- 



532 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



tiful in tliose days. Arriving there, he would 
spread out a sail-cloth upon the ground and on 
this thresh out the buckwheat as his wife car- 
ried it to him. They then placed it in bags and 
took it to the tavern in the canoe, emptying 
out the bags of grain in an upstairs bedroom. 
The following winter there was a scarcity of 
flour and in February the supply in Lower Sag- 
inaw became exhausted and none could be ob- 
tained from Saginaw or Flint. To the people 
of the settlement. Judge Campbell's store of 
buckwheat was indeed welcome. Frederick 
Derr, who lived in the "wild-cat" bank build- 
ing opposite the ta\ern, owned a large coffee- 
mill, of which the settlers soon took advantage, 
taking the amount of buckwheat needed and 
grinding it in this mill. In this way the only 
flour used in the settlement for a period of three 
weeks was made, and none was obliged to go 
hungry. In those days Judge Campbell was 
very friendly with the Indians, and traded ex- 
tensively with them. He conducted the tavern 
for a number of years, and in after years when 
retired from business activity he formed the 
habit of going to the hotel for a social visit 
twice a day. In 1873, he built a brick busi- 
ness block, just north of the hotel, and in many 
ways was prominently identified with the de- 
velopment of the city. He made many inter- 
esting notes with regard to the early history of 
this vicinity, and these appear in the historical 
portion of this work. He witnessed the grad- 
ual change of Bay County from a wild and 
sparsely settled state to its present condition, 
with its richly cultivated farms and populous 
towns and cities. He was the first supervisor of 
Hampton township, the first meeting being 
held in his tavern. He held that office a num- 
ber of years and when the county was organ- 
ized, became probate judge, serving as such for 
a period of 12 years, from 1857. He was elec- 
ted on the Democratic ticket, and was always 



a consistent member of that party, frequently 
serving as delegate to county. State and con- 
gressional conventions. 

In March, 1830, Judge Campbell was joined 
in the bonds of matrimony with Catherine J. 
McCartee, one of those sturdy pioneer women 
who bravely faced the hardships and thrilling 
experiences of the early days in this country. 
She was of Scotch-Irish descent and was a 
daughter of William James and Clara (Dun- 
lap) McCartee. Judge Campbell died August 
10, 1887, aged nearly 84 years, and his wife 
died June i, 1888. They were parents of the 
following children : Margaret, deceased, who 
was the wife of Bernhardt Witthauer; Emily, 
who resides in the old family home at No. 1704 
Woodside avenue, and is the only one of the 
children living in Bay City; Edward McCartee, 
deceased, was the first white boy born in Lower 
Saginaw ; William James, a farmer residing in 
Pinconning township; and Catherine, who 
died in infancy. Judge Campbell was a 
man of the highest character, and had his influ- 
ence in the moral, intellectual and financial af- 
fairs of the community. He and his wife 
were Presbyterians. Miss Emily Campbell is 
a lady of literary attainments and accomplish- 
ments, and has always occupied a prominent 
place in the refined circles of Bay City. 



REDERICK WILLIAM DUNHAM, 
whose post office address is West 
Bay City, is a prominent and pros- 
perous farmer living in section 21. 
Monitor township. He was born in Madison_ 
County, New York, October 18, 1832, and is a 
son of Alpha and Freelove (Mathewson) Dun- 
ham. His education was obtained mostly in the 
district schools of the "Empire" State and in 
an academv at Hamilton, New York. He then 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



533 



engaged in teaching a short time near Adrian, 
Michigan. From Adrian lie went to Higgins- 
port, Ohio, as instructor in the High School, 
of which he later became principal, which posi- 
tion he held for four years. In the winter of 
1858-59 he was in New Orleans, and in tlat- 
boats traded in produce along the bayous of 
the lower Mississippi River. 

In i860 Mr. Dunham visited his early home 
in New York, where he remained until 1861, 
\\hen he came to Bay City to take charge of the 
public schools as superintendent. There was 
then but one public school building in Bay 
City; it had three departments. Two years later 
he resigned this position and opened a grocery 
on Water street, under the firm name of Phil- 
lips & Dunham. On account of ill health, he 
sold his interest to Mr. Phillips four years later, 
and engaged in farming in Barry County, 
Michigan. In connection with his brother-in- 
law, he bought 200 acres of land. This was but 
partly cleared, and they built a house and barn ; 
on this property Mr. Dunham lived three years. 

At the request of his former business part- 
ner, ]\Ir. Phillips, who was then postmaster 
under President Grant, Mr. Dunham returned 
to Bay City, to act as assistant postmaster. In 
this capacity he served eight years. Under the 
Hayes administration he was appointed post- 
master of Bay City, and continued thus for one 
term. He then located on a farm of 320 acres, 
which he had purchased in connection with 
Herschel H. Hatch, now an attorney of De- 
troit. They cleared, fenced and drained most 
of this land. On it they built two houses and 
what was considered in those days a very large 
barn, its dimensionns being 80 by 80 feet. 

Mr. Dunham has been twice married, his 
first wife being Mary E. Haughton, of Madison 
County, New York. His second wife was 
Emma A. Haughton. of the same county. They 
were sisters, lx)th being daughters of Augustus 



and Meribee C. (Mills) Haughton. The first 
marriage resulted in one son, Eugene, who died 
when 13 years old; and two daughters, — Mrs. 
James Wilcox, of Monitor township, and Flor- 
ence, who lives with her parents. 

The subject of this sketch gives consider- 
able attention to dairy farming, the production 
and sale of milk being the main feature of his 
farm. He is the possessor of a good library, 
and spends a great deal of time with his books. 
In politics, Mr. Dunham is a stanch Republican, 
and voted for Gen. John C. Fremont, the first 
presidential candidate of that party in 1856. In 
local political matters, he acts independently. 
He is a member of the Patrons of Husbandry, 
and is past master of Subordinate Grange, No. 
1,036. 




ON. HAMILTON MERCER 
WRIGHT, B. A., M. A., LL. B.. of 
Bay City, Michigan, whose long and 
honorable official career in Bay 
County has made his name familiar all over the 
State, and whose scholarly attainments have 
made him a conspicuous figure for years in 
every noted gathering of lettered men, was 
born in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, 
October 26, 1852, and is a son of Hamilton 
Mercer and Virginia (Huckins) W'right. 

The Wright family is of Scotch-Irish ex- 
traction. They came from the North of Ire- 
land and settled in Fishkill Plains, New York, 
in the first half of the i8th century. Our sub- 
ject's grandfather, Isaac Wright, a descendant 
of the original emigrant, married a daughter 
of Mercer Hamilton who came to America with 
Thomas Addis Emmet, a brother of the noted 
Irish patriot, Robert Emmet. The former, un- 
like his famous brother, escaped to America 
after being apprehended and tried for treason 



534 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and later became a distinguished citizen of the 
State of New York. 

The father of Judge Wright was born in 
1808 in Dutchess County, New York. When 
lie reached manhood he went to New Orleans, 
where he engaged in business and amassed a 
fortune as a cotton factor, which placed him 
with the foremost capitalists of the State. The 
misfortunes incident to the outbreak and con- 
tinuance of the Civil War made great inroads 
upon this fortune and Mr. Wright did not long 
survive after the close of hostilities, his death 
taking place in 1869. In 1850, Mr. Wright 
was married to Virginia Huckins, who was 
born in Virginia, and died in Dinan, Brittany, 
France, in 1897, aged 87 years. The two chil- 
dren of this marriage were our esteemed sub- 
ject and a sister, Nina, who is the widow of 
the Marquis of Potestad, of France. 

Immediately following the capture of New 
Orleans by the Federal forces, Mrs. Wright and 
her children left the turmoil then existing in 
that city and took a steamer for Europe. She 
established a home at Geneva, Switzerland, and 
in that old historic city her son laid the founda- 
tion of an education that has covered many 
lines. Later, he spent two years taking a col- 
legiate course at Cheltenham. England. The 
death of his father, in 1869, recalled him to 
America, where he soon became a student at 
Yale. \Vhile in his junior year he married 
and with his bride returned to Europe. Dur- 
ing the two years passed on the Continent, he 
studied medicine at Heidelberg, Germany and 
at Pisa, Italy, and upon his second return to 
America he reentered Yale, where he was grad- 
uated in 1875, — "^li*^ i^'i'n\\ in rank in a class of 
150 students. 

The young physician then entered upon the 
study of the law, earning the means by which he 
could follow this course by teaching modern 
languages, being master of seven. In 1877, 



when he was graduated from the law school. 
Chief Justice Waite took occasion, when hand- 
ing him his diploma, to pay him the unusual 
attention of complimenting him on having 
passed tlie best examination of any student that 
had ever come to his knowledge. His high 
scholarship won for him the coveted reward of 
the Jewell gold medal. Subsequently he passed 
the bar examinations in Connecticut ami in New 
York, and was admitted to practice in both 
States. When he came to Michigan, in 1877, 
he found that the laws of this State required an- 
other examination. After a few months spent 
in the office of Windsor Schofield, in order to 
familiarize himself with Michigan practice, he 
was admitted to the bar here. He then opened 
an office in partnership with Carl Drake, also a 
Yale graduate, under the firm name of Wright 
& Drake, which was dissolved six months later, 
since which time Judge Wright has practiced 
alone. 

Politically an ardent Democrat, Judge 
Wright has always been noted for his sturdy 
American patriotism. He has been honored by 
his party and by his fellow-citizens on more 
occasions than usually come to one individual, 
and it is but just to say that his whole public 
career has justified the confidence reposed in 
him. In April, 1881, he was elected alderman 
to represent the Fifth Ward, and later jvas 
elected to represent the Eighth Ward. In 1883 
he was elected to a seat in the State Legislature 
and public approval of his course was shown 
by his reelection in 1885. When his term as 
city alderman closed, in 1887, his fellow-citi- 
zens were not willing for him to pass out of 
official civic life, and, without consulting him, 
they nominated him for the office of mayor. 
To this highest municipal place he was elected 
by a plurality of 804 votes. 

Two years later, before his mayoralty term 
had expired, he was nominated for judge of 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



535 



probate, and in November, 1888, he was elected 
to this honorable office and served in both ca- 
pacities nntil the following- April, declining at 
that time a renomination for the mayoralty. He 
continued as judge of probate until 1892, when 
he was elected for another four years, his ma- 
jorities offering the flattering figm-es of from 
1,300 to 1,700 votes. In 1895 'i^ ^^'as again 
called to the mayor'e chair and served two years 
more, filling both official positions, and in 1896 
he was reelected judge of probate and contin- 
ued in office until January i, 1901. He has had 
frequent opportunities to lay claim to still 
higher political positions, but has refused to be 
further tempted from the congenial life and 
large emoluments connected with his profes- 
sion. In addition to an extensive practice, he 
has charge of his wife's large property interests 
and is obliged to give more or less attention to 
luisiness enterprises .of his own. Formerly he 
was largely interested in real estate develop- 
ment here, and has built some 50 comfortable 
houses which he has sold, on easy terms, to 
working men. It is a matter of satisfaction to 
him that he has never had a single law suit with 
a tenant, nor has he ever foreclosed a mort- 
gage or contract. 

For some time Judge Wright has been much 
interested in the development of Point Look- 
out, the only summer resort on the western 
shore of Saginaw Bay. He took hold of this 
property in 1895. as trustee, and in 1900 it 
came into his wife's possession. This delight- 
ful place to spend the summer was started 
about 1882 by Tasker & McDonald, and as the 
steamers of the old Saginaw, Bay City and 
Alpena line were running, this resort grew 
rapidly in favor. Upon the discontinuance of 
the line, its prosperity departed, on account of 
want of suitable transportation. This condi- 
tion led Judge Wright to purchase the steamer 
"City of New Baltimore," a trim, safe little 



vessel, which easily accommodates 400 pass- 
engers, ajul is chartered for regular trips dur- 
mg the summer season. Negotiations are in 
progress for the erection of a fine modern hotel 
here, \\'ith accommodations for a large number 
of guests, although an excellent hotel and 
numerous cottages ha\-e already been built here. 
It offers a quiet, healthful, delightful home for 
the hundreds who are in searcl: of a place for a 
summer home, where the breath of politics has 
never blown and the frivolities of fashion have 
not o\ercome peace and comfort with preten- 
sion and show. 

Judge Wright was married in 1 871 to Anne 
Dana Fitzhugh, who is a daughter of the late 
William D. Fitzhugh, extended mention of 
whom will lie found in this work. They have 
had eight children, viz : Anne Virginia, born at 
Geneva. Switzerland, who married Thomas L. 
Kane, of Kane, McKean County, Pennsylvania, 
who is a nephew of the distinguished Arctic ex- 
plorer. Dr. Elisha Kent Kane: Hamilton Mer- 
cer, Jr.. the fourth of the name in direct line of 
descent, born at New Haven, Connecticut, in 
1874, who is a resident of Oakland, California, 
an attorney-at-law, and the secretary of the 
California Promotion Committee; Sybil K., 
born at New Haven, in 1877, who married 
George S. McLandress, a practicing physician 
of Albuquerque, New Mexico; Cornelia, born 
at Bay City, in 1879, deceased m 1896; Archi- 
bald V. R., born at Bay City in 1883; Charles 
Carroll, born at Rugby. Tennessee, in June, 
1866; Alida Fitzhugh born at Bay City, Sep- 
tember 9. 1888; and William Edward, born at 
Bay City. February 13, 1891. The family be- 
long to the Protestant Episcopal Church. 

Judge Wright's delightful home is not only 
one of culture but of rare hospitality. Perhaps 
here he is at his best, proffering a real Southern, 
hearty welcome to those admitted to close 
friendship, taking rare pleasure in the treasures 



536 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



of his great library of -2,500 volumes, or in en- 
thusiastically displaying his thousands of choice 
photographs, which he has himself taken. He 
has 2,600 negatives in his possession, some of 
which have never l^een printed, but a number 
of which have won prizes in exhibitions of 
amateur photography. 

Judge Wright is associated in membership 
with Joppa Lodge, No. 315, F. & A. ]\I. ; Bay 
Lodge, No. 104, L O. O. F. ; Bay City Lodge, 
No. 23, K. P. ; and Lodge No. 88, B. P. O. E. 
He is a man who is equally at home in social 
usages, in business, politics, medicine and 
law. 



II 



OHN BERGER, one of the successful 
business men of Amelith, Frankenlust 
township, who owns and operates 
what is said to be the largest cheese 
factory in Bay County, was born at Berne, 
Switzerland, January 28, 1848, and is a son 
of John and Elizabeth (Spring) Berger. 

The parents of Mr. Berger never came to 
America. They had four children : John, of 
this sketch; Jacob, who owns and operates a 
cheese factory at Canton, Ohio ; Gottlieb, a 
farmer in Switzerland; and Mrs. Elizabeth 
Garber, of Switzerland. 

Our subject went to school until he was 16 
years of age and then learned the cheese busi- 
ness, working in a Swiss factory, where he 
learned all the different preparations of this 
necessary adjunct to a good meal, until 1876, 
when he came to Massillon, Ohio. There he 
remained until 1886 when he removed to 
Saginaw and one year later to Bay County. 
After working three years in the woods and 
obtaining enough capital in this way to start 
into business, he opened a small cheese fac- 
tory at Amelith. This was the first factory of 
its kind in Bav Countv. ]\Ir. Berger received 



much encouragement from the first for his 
products were wholesome and palatable, and he 
has enlarged and again enlarged his business 
until he now has a plant with capacity for turn- 
ing out 10,000 pounds of cheese per day, four 
capable workmen being employed. Mr. Ber- 
ger's specialty is brick cheese, which he intro- 
duced to the trade. 

On his acre and a half of land, Mr. Berger 
has built a fine home, a big barn and his well- 
equipped factory. It is his intention to also 
erect a store and engage in merchandising. 

On November 30, 1877, Mr. Berger was 
married in Ohio to Mattie Kinsey, who was 
born March 31, 1858, and is a daughter of 
Christian Kinsey, a native of Switzerland. Mr. 
and ]\Irs. Berger have four children: Ferdi- 
nand, whose home is opposite to that of his 
father; Flora, wife of August Haag, of Frank- 
enlust township ; and John and Anna, who live 
at home. 

Air. Berger is a self-made man. His pros- 
perity has come through his own ability and in- 
dustry. He is a good citizen, one of the rep- 
resentative men of' Frankenlust township. In 
politics he is a Republican. He was post- 
master for eight years at Amelith, having re- 
ceived his appointment from President 
AIcKinley. 




1ER0]ME B. STEVENS, one of the 
prominent and substantial citizens of 
Bay County, senior member of the 
firm of J. B. Stevens & Sons, and 
owner of one of the largest dairy farms in this 
section, which includes 100 acres of land in 
sections 8 and 17, Hampton township, was born 
at Pike, Wyoming County, New York, August 
15, 1844, and is the only son of Jerome B. and 
Mary (Beardsley) Stevens. 

The father of our subject died at a point 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



537 



on the Allegheny River, where he was operat- 
ing a sawmill, when our subject was five years 
of age. Both he and his wife were natives of 
the State of New York. 

Jerome B. Stevens, our subject, was reared 
on a farm until he was 14 years of age and 
then learned the shoemaking trade at Rushford, 
Allegany County, New York, and followed it 
until he came to Michigan in March, 1864. He 
settled first at Monroe, in Monroe County, and 
became a student in the Monroe High School, 
teaching school in the following winter and 
thus earning the means with which to take a 
business course at the Albion Commercial Col- 
lege at Albion, Michigan. Mr. Stevens then 
opened a shoe store at Tecumseh, Michigan, and 
continued there in the shoe business for five 
years. His next business venture was the 
wholesale manufacturing of boots and shoes at 
Tecumseh under the firm name of J. B. Stevens 
& Snedicor ; after one year of operation the 
factor}- was removed to Detroit, where Mr. 
Stevens continued to operate until 1877, when 
he sold out and then engaged as traveling sales- 
man for one year for Pingree & Smith, shoe 
manufacturers of Detroit. He then opened a 
retail store in Detroit, which he conducted until 
1893, when he sold it. In the following year 
he came to his present farm. Four of his sons 
are associated with him in the dairy and pro- 
duce business ; the farm is devoted to the pro- 
duction of fine dairy goods, milk, cream, but- 
ter and also eggs. For the fine quality of goods 
it has gained a name on the market. 

In 1867 Mr. Stevens married Kittie Foun- 
tain, who was born in 1843 ^^ Manchester. 
^Michigan, and is a daughter of Jabez and 
Catherine Fountain, of Eastern New York. 
They had two children, — Julian and Hcrliert. 
His second marriage was to Lucy Stephens, a 
daughter of Jonathan and Charlotte Stephens. 
To this union were born three sons : Frank C. 



Clarence E. and Ray B. For his third wife 
i\Ir. Stevens chose Sarah E. Wood, of Ohio, 
daughter of Samuel and Priscilla H. Wood, na- 
tives of Ohio and members of the Society of 
Friends. All the sons are connected with the 
firm except Herbert, who resides in Iowa. The 
family belong to the Baptist Church. 

Mr. Stevens has taken a great deal of in- 
terest in agricultural matters since settling on 
his farm and has been prominently identified 
with the Patrons of Husbandry and at pres- 
ent is serving as master of Pomona Grange. 




E\". LORENZ A. WISSMUELLER, 
pastor of Trinity Evangelical Lu- 
theran Church of ]\Ionitor, Bay 
County, Michigan, is widely known 
throughout that section of the county where he 
has labored so faithfully and with such bene- 
ficial results. He was Ijorn in Frankentrost 
township, Saginaw County, Michigan, Decem- 
ber 29, 1869, and is a son of Lorenz and Julia 
(Moll) Wissmueller. 

J. Adam Wissmueller and his wife, the 
grandparents of our subject, were one of 13 
couples who left Franken. Germany in 1847 and 
came to America in search of religious freedom. 
Mr. Wissmueller and his wife had two chil- 
dren at that time: Margaret, now the wife of 
George Kipfmueller of Bay County; and 
George who died at the age of 40 years and 
was buried at Frankentrost, IMichigan. This 
party of early settlers located in Saginaw 
County, Michigan, in 1847, ^"d there founded 
the colony of Frankentrost, after which the 
township later took its name. They were led 
bv their pastor, Rev. J. H. Ph. Graebner. who 
went to the land office at Marshall and pur- 
chased two and a half sections of timber land in 
Bloomfield township, at j"/ cents per acre, which 



538 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



were divided among tliem. The people and 
their chnrch prospered. After the division of 
their lands, they set about clearing their farms 
and building homes. 

Lorenz Wissmueller, father of our subject, 
was born at Frankentrost, Saginaw County, 
and later moved to Saginaw, where he engaged 
in teaming for some years. He later returned 
to his native place and in 1897 purchased a 
farm. He married Julia ]\Ioll, one of 11 chil- 
dren born to Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Moll, who 
also came to this country widi the party above 
mentioned. Of the eight children torn of this 
union, Lorenz A. is the oldest. He has a 
brother Richard, a teacher in St. Peter's Paro- 
chial School at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Our 
subject's mother died in 1893 and was buried in 
the cemetery at Saginaw. 

Lorenz A. Wissmueller was educated at 
the Holy Cross Evangelical Lutheran School 
at Saginaw, and in 1883 was confirmed at the 
age of 13. He attended public school two 
months, then through the assistance of Rev. 
Joseph Schmidt, pastor of his church, attended 
Concordia College at Fort Wayne. Lidiana, 
graduating in 1889, after a course of six years. 
He entered Concordia Seminary at St. Louis, 
and completed a three-years course in theolog}' 
in 1893, '" the meantime having served a year 
as vicar of the Evangelical Lutheran St. John's 
Church at Marion Springs, Michigan. He was 
ordained June 18, 1893, in the Evangelical 
Lutheran St. Lorenz Church at Frankenmuth, 
Michigan, and served six months as vicar there. 
December 17, 1893, he was installed as pas- 
tor of Trinity Church at Forestville, and in 
May, 1896, accepted a call to Trinity Church 
at Monitor, being installed on June 7th of that 
year. 

The Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Church 
at Monitor was formed in the spring of 1880 
by Rev. Ferdinand Sievers, Sr.. with 17 char- 



ter members, nine of whom are still living. On 
July 1 8th the congregation was organized and 
Rev. Ferdinand Sievers, Jr., accepted the call 
as pastor and continued until May 31, 1896, 
when he accepted a call to South Chicago. The 
corner-stone of the present church was laid 
July 18, 1897, and it was dedicated February 
6, 1898. The brick of which it is constructed 
were drawn nine miles, as were the stone trim- 
mings. The church supports two schools, one 
under O. Mueller and the other under charge 
of J. G. Appold. It has no voting members, 
382 communicants and 660 souls. Last year 
20 children were baptised, 28 confirmed, five 
couples were married and two members buried. 
Rev. Mr. Wissmueller married Anna C. 
Schwartz, a daughter of Rev. W. Schwartz, of 
Ruth, Huron County, Michigan, and they have 
fi\-e children : Clara, Lorenz, Kurt, Armin and 
Anna. 




R.\XK RIVARD, a prosperous and 
respected agriculturist of Eraser 
township, whose farm is located in 
sections 32 and 2i3' ^^'^s born in Ma- 
comb County, Michigan, in 1837. He is a 
son of Mitchell and Theresa (De Kane) 
Rivard. 

Mitchell Rivard was born in Quebec, and 
his wife in Ontario, Canada. The former was 
a farmer in Macomb County, Michigan, and 
died in 1886 in his 93d year. He used to haul 
fire-wood from Grosse Pointe to Detroit, when 
the latter place was no more than a village. 
Rivard street in Detroit was named after an 
uncle of Frank Rivard whose farm many years 
ago was in that locality. 

Frank Rivard attended the public school in 
Macomb County, where he afterwards was 
married. He first commenced farming in St. 
Clair County, Michigan, where he owned 80 




BRUNO C. NABERT 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



541 



acres of land, which he cultix'ated until 1887, 
when he came to Bay County, and purchased 
160 acres in section 32. Later he bought the 
60-acre tract in section t,Ti, where his farm- 
house is located. He still owns 120 acres, hav- 
ing sold 40 acres and given some land to his 
sons. He is a general farmer and stock-raiser. 
In 1869 the subject of this sketch was mar- 
ried to Theresa Quono. a native of France. On 
the death of her father she came to America 
with her mother and two sisters. Her union 
with Mr. Rivard resulted in 10 children, as 
follows: Irene, born October 14, 1870, and de- 
ceased August 2, 1897, who was an Ursuline 
Sister at the time of her death; Sifers, born 
August 8, 1872; Henry, born May 22, 1874, 
and deceased April 21, 1876; Frank, Jr., born 
June 15, 1876; Philip, born May 4, 1878; Kate, 
born December 8, 1880; Emil, born October 
28, 1882; Josephine, born October 3, 1885; 
Joseph, born October 8, 1887 ; and Helen, born 
May 3, 1893. Sifers, the oldest son, married 
Emma McClure, and has three children, — 
Ethel, Leo and Irene. Kate married George 
Petrimoulx, and had two children, — Norbet 
and Emil. Emil married Jennie Le Bordais 
and resides in Eraser township. In politics, 
Mr. Rivard is a Democrat. He and his family 
are members of the Catholic Church. 




RUNO C. NABERT, deceased, for 
many years a progressive and suc- 
cessful business man of Bay City, 
whose portrait is herewith shown, 
was widely known as an exceptionally 
fine coppersmith, sheet-iron worker and 
steam-fitter. His death occurred in 1903, and 
was not only a sad shock to his wife and rela- 
tives but to his many friends throughout Bay 
County. Pie was born in Frankenlust town- 



ship, Bay County, Michigan, January 28, 1852, 
and was a son of Dr. August Nabert. 

Dr. August Nabert was born in Brunswick, 
Germany January 10, 1828, and was gradu- 
ated from a medical college in Brunswick. 
After lea\ing college he spent three years as a 
physician on a South Sea whaling vessel, and 
in 1 85 1 came to America. He settled in the 
Saginaw Valley and commenced the practice of 
medicine. This was the year of the great chol- 
era epidemic. Dr. Nabert was stricken with 
the fatal disease and died on September 4, 1854, 
when his son Bruno was less than a year old. 
He left a wife and five children, all of whom 
are living but our subject, and all those li\-ing 
reside in Bay County, except one son, who re- 
sides in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Bruno Nabert recei\-ed a common-school 
education such as could be obtained in the 
schools of that day. The instruction given him 
was limited in amount and scope, but he took 
advantage of such opportunities as he had and 
grew to be a well informed man. He had a 
remarkably retentive memory and could re- 
late, with accuracy as to date and de- 
tail, many of the interesting occurrences 
of the early days of Bay City. At an 
early day he learned the tinner's trade, 
and while following it also learned that of 
a coppersmith, in which trade he became ex- 
tremely proficient. He was a genius in his 
work in copper and built up a trade in almost 
all parts of the United States and Canada. Few 
excelled him in this line and his work need but 
be seen to be appreciated. For a period of 25 
years he was foreman for the Miller Hardware 
Company, then opened a shop for himself on 
Water street, between Second and Third 
streets, oftentimes employing as many as 10 
men. In 1903 he purchased the present place 
of the business established by him at No. 616 
North Water street. After his death, his wid- 



54^ 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



o\v took entire charge of the business, which she 
still manages. It was in an unsettled condi- 
tion at first, but she took hold and straight- 
ened out the affairs in an able manner and has 
since given her time largely to its manage- 
ment. Mrs. Nabert is a woman of a higher or- 
der of intellect, ability and good judgment, and 
was very frequently consulted by her husband 
concerning matters of business. 

In 1888 Mr. Nabert was united in mar- 
riage with Emma Sherman, who was born in 
Ohio, and is one of two children born to George 
and Amanda (Woodmansee) Sherman, natives 
of the "Empire" State. This union resulted 
in the birth of two children, both of whom died 
in infancy. Religiously, Mrs. Nabert is a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and is identified with all the church societies, 
being treasurer of the Home Missionary So- 
ciety. She is a woman of culture and refine- 
ment, and has many friends who enjoy the hos- 
pitality of her home. 

Mr. Nabert was a lover of fast horses and 
owned two fine specimens of horseflesh, both 
reeistered and well-known in this vicinitv, 
namely: "Florence Mack" and "Black Jack." 
He went to Chicago in October, 1903, to pur- 
chase a valuable animal valued at $500, and it 
was while there he was stricken with ap- 
pendicitis and operated on. On October 25th, 
Mrs. Nabert received a dispatch announcing 
the operation as she was leaving church, and 
took the first train for Chicago, accompanied 
by J. H. Metcalf, a friend of the family. Mr. 
Nabert died on the following day, the 26th, at 
at 6 o'clock P. M. Mrs. Nabert is not a strong 
woman physically, and the shock of her hus- 
band's sudden illness and decease completely 
overcame her. His remains were brought to 
Bay City and are in a vault in Elm Lawn Cem- 
etery, where a fine monument to his memory 
has been erected. 



Mr. and Mrs. Nabert were almost insepar- 
able companions outside of business hours, and 
both being fond of horses were nearly always 
seen driving together. She still owns the fine 
horses owned by him at his death and takes 
great pride in them. She rented the family 
home at 214 Jefferson street, then leased 10 
acres on the boundary of Bay City where she 
has a comfortable home and the facilities for 
properlv caring for her blooded stock. 




RANK H. HOFFMANN, one of the 
most highly respected citizens of Bay 
City, Michigan, a retired farmer and 
formerly city treasurer, was born in 
Johannesburg, Austria, September 28, 1824, 
and is a son of Joseph and Rosalie (Metzger) 
Hoffmann. 

Joseph Hoffmann, the paternal grandfather, 
was born at Zegenhultz, a village in Prussia, 
not far from the Austrian line. His son, Jo- 
seph Hoft'mann, the father of our subject, 
learned the tailoring trade which he followed, 
in an establishment of his own at Johannes- 
burg, for a number of years. He died there in 
1865, aged 65 years. He married a daughter 
of Carl Metzger, of Johannesburg, who was a 
prominent man there and lived to the age of 89 
years. Mr. and Mrs. Hoffmann had 12 chil- 
dren, the four who reached maturity being: 
John, Frank H., Catherine and Conrad, all now 
deceased except our esteemed subject. John 
lived in Cleveland, Ohio and served in an Ohio 
regiment during the Civil War. Conrad died 
in the Austrian Army. They were reared in 
the faith of the Roman Catholic Church. 

Our subject adopted his father's trade, 
which he learned very thoroughly at an estab- 
lishment in Wein, Austria. In 1849 he came 
to America, landing at the port of New York. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



543 



In that city he continued to follow the tailor- 
ing business for three years, when he came to 
Bay City, one of the early business men here. 
In addition to his tailoring, he became inter- 
ested in other enterprises, operating a large 
grocery for a time and for one year conducting 
the Bay City House, which was. one of the first 
hotels here. Subsequently he built a hotel on 
the corner of Sixth and Adams streets which 
he operated two years. In the meantime he had 
invested in farming land on the corner of 
South Center street (now Cass avenue) and 
the city limits, and in 1881 he w'ent to live 
there. It was originally a tract of 40 acres, to 
which ]Mr. Hoffmann added until he had 120 
acres. Later he disposed of all but 10 acres, 
which he farmed until 1904. 

At Bay City Mr. Hoffmann married Cath- 
erine Close, who was born in Baiern. They had 
12 children, the 10 who reached maturity be- 
ing: Minnie, wife of John S. Dougherty, of 
Bay City; Frank, of Alpena, Miciiigan ; Au- 
gust, of Pontiac, Michigan; Bertha, wife of 
William H. Brown, of Alpena, Michigan; 
Catherine, wife of J. F. Boes, a sketch of whom 
appears in this work; Rosalie, wife of Fred L. 
Hanscombe, of West Bay City ; Lillian ; Wal- 
ter, of Spokane, Washington ; Fred, of Hough- 
ton, Michigan ; and William, of Bay City. The 
mother of this familv died in 1901, aged 63 
years. The family belong to the German Lu- 
theran Church. 

Politically, Mr. Hoffmann has always been 
identified with the Democratic party. In i860 
he was city treasurer. He has served as high- 
way commissioner and for eight years past 
has been a member of the School Board, of 
Fractional School District, No. 3, of Ports- 
mouth township. 

Joiix S. Dougherty, son-in-law- of Mr. 
Hoffmann, was born in 1855 at Bay City, and 



is a son of Henry and Catherine Dougherty. 
Henry Dougherty w^as one of the early settlers 
of Bay City, ,and was an engineer by profes- 
sion. His five children were : William, of 
Marquette, Michigan ; Albert, of Spokane, 
Washington; John S., of BayCity and Hugh, 
of Hot Springs. 

John S. Dougherty was educated in the 
public schools and for many years was em- 
ployed as a lumber and log scaler. When the 
North American Chemical Company's plant 
was opened, he became foreman, having charge 
of the process department. Mr. Dougherty's 
marriage with Minnie Hoffmann has been 
blessed with five children : Joseph J., Ruth M., 
Llarry L., Frank E. and Mamie. In his politi- 
cal views Mr. Dougherty is a Republican. Fra- 
ternally he is a member of the Knights of 
Pythias. The family and all its connections 
stantl very high in public esteem in Bay City. 




DWARD W. PORTER, a prominent 
attorney of Bay City, and a member 
of the firm of Porter & Haffey, was 
born at Metamora, Lapeer County, 
Michigan, in 1851. He is a son of M. G. and 
Maria A. (Morse) Porter, and a grandson of 
Moses Porter, who was a native of Connecticut 
and served as a commissioned officer in the 
Revolutionary War. Moses Porter came to 
Michigan at an early period and died May 8, 
1840. in Lapeer County, aged 81 years. He 
was buried at Metamora. 

The maternal grandfather of Mr. Porter 
was a resident of Western New York. He 
.served in the War of 1812 and afterward came 
to Michigan. His wife was born and reared in 
Massachusetts. 

The parents of Edward W. Porter were 
early settlers of Lapeer County, Michigan. The 



544 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



father was a farmer by vocation, and served the 
pubhc interests in various local offices. In 1S52 
the family moved to Oakland County, Michi- 
gan, where the subject of this sketch was 
reared, and where his primary mental training 
was obtained. In 1871 he entered Hillsdale 
College from which he was graduated in 1875. 
He also attended the law school of the Univer- 
sity of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, from which 
he was graduated in 1876, the year after grad- 
uating in the literary course. He had read law 
in Saginaw, in the office of his brother, Samuel 
M., who is now located in Montgomery County, 
Kansas, and represents his county in the Kan- 
sas State Senate. After completing his prep- 
aration for the practice of the law, he settled 
in Bay City, where he has since been engaged 
in the practice of his profession. 

Besides the brother in Kansas, Mr. Porter 
has another, John A., who is a farmer in Mont- 
calm County, Michigan. He has also a sister, 
Mrs. Sarah Chapman, who lives on the old 
home farm in Novi township, Oakland County, 
Michigan. 

Edward \V. Porter married Alma Welsh, 
of Northville. Michigan, a member of one of 
the oldest families of that vicinity and of the 
State. She was born in Novi township and re- 
ceived her education in the State Normal 
School at Ypsilanti. 

Mr. and Mrs. Porter have five sons and two 
daughters, namely: Sidney W. and Angle L., 
who are attending the Bay City High School ; 
Erwin E., Wendell J., Inez A. and M. Morse, 
pupils in the Dolsen Public School ; and Frank 
B., aged three years. The family residence is 
at No. 1809 Fifth avenue, corner of Johnson 
street. 

Politically, Mr. Porter has always been a 
Republican, having cast his first vote for Grant. 
He served two years as assistant prosecuting 
attorney of Bay County in 1883-84. Socially, 



he is a member of the Delta Tau Delta fra- 
ternity. He belongs to the Baptist Church. 

Joseph P. Haffey, of the law firm of Por- 
ter & Hafifey, of Bay City,' Michigan, was born 
near Toronto, Canada, August 24. 1853. He 
is a son of John and Margaret (Keenan) 
Haffey. who were natives of County Armagh, 
Ireland. They came to America in the early 
"thirties" and engaged in farmings. The father 
died in 1884 and the mother, in 1898. They 
had 10 children, of whom one died in infancy. 
The others, exclusive of the subject of this 
sketch, are as follows : James, of [Minnesota ; 
John, who lives on the home farm in Canada ; 
Thomas K. and Peter J., who are engaged 
in business in Toronto, Canada ; Alice, who 
lives in Toronto; Mrs. Ellen Reilly; and Mrs. 
Elizabeth Langby, of Niagara Falls, New 
York. 

Mr. Haffey was reared in Canada until he 
reached early manhood. There he attended the 
public schools and afterward spent seven years 
at St. Michael's College, in Toronto, where he 
graduated in 1876. In that institution he sub- 
sequently taught for one year, and was also 
for two and a half years a teacher in the public 
schools. 

On coming to Michigan, Mr. Haffey stud- 
ied law in the University of Michigan at Ann 
Arbor, and was admitted to the bar of Michi- 
gan in 1884, after spending two years in the 
law office of Lindner & Porter. 

Mr. Haffney was married at Port Huron, 
Michigan, to Mary Murphy, of Stratford, Can- 
ada. Their five children, all born at Bay City, 
are as follows : Joseph, Marie, Grace, Thomas 
J. and Isabel. The family residence is at No. 
406 loth street. Politically, Mr. Haffey is a 
Democrat. Fraternally, he belongs to the A. 
O. H. He is a member of St. James Catholic 
Church. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



545 



I 



F.TER BEECKMAN, a well-known 
resident of Merritt township, who 
owns and resides on a fine farm of 80 
acres situated in section 8, was born 
August 4, 1835, "^"^^ Alost, Belgium, and is 
a son of Francis and Victoria (Van Hicht) 
Beeckman. 

The father of Air. Beeckman was born in 
Belgium and died at Grosse Pointe, Wayne 
County, Michigan, at the age of 52 years. His 
widow surviveil until 1870, being /^ years old 
at death. They were quiet farming people and 
were much respected by all who knew them. 
Their children were: Francis, deceased: 
Adolph, of Wayne County; George, deceased; 
Emily (Mrs. Vanderbush), deceased; Antoin- 
ette (Mrs. Lasquire), deceased; Louisa (Mrs. 
V^an Larberger), of Detroit; Grace, who died 
in Belgium : and Peter, of this sketch. 

Our subject was only two and a half years 
old when his parents came to America. They 
came to purchase farming land and after reach- 
ing Detroit removed to Grosse Pointe, where 
both died. Peter remained on the home farm 
until 1875 and then came to Bay County and 
for about 20 years was engaged in farming in 
Flampton township. He then spent six years 
in Portsmouth township. He purchased his 
present excellent property in ]\Ierritt town- 
ship in 1900 but has resided on it for the past 
nine years. He carries on a general line of 
farming, raises some stock, does some dairy- 
ing and enjoys as much prosperity as any 
farmer in the township. 

At Detroit, in 1870. Air. Beeckman was 
married to Emily Vermeesch, who was born 
May 29, 1849, '" Belgium, and is a daughter 
of Francis and Barbara (Maddelen) \^er- 
meesch. She came to Detroit with her widowed 
mother and two twin brothers in 1865. Mr. 
and Mrs. Beeckman have eight children : 
Frank, a farmer of Merritt township, married 



Mary Wiedyke, and has six children; Charles, 
Peter and Arthur, all living at home assisting 
on the farm; Mary, who married Louis Gwiz- 
dale, of Merritt township, and has two chil- 
dren ; Emily, wife of Joseph Schuler of Bay 
City; and Rose and Annie, who live at home. 

Politically, Mr. Beeckman has always been 
a supporter of the Democratic party. He is a 
member of St. John's Catholic Church at Es- 
sexville. 




RANK H. MOHR, one of the prom- 
inent and enterprising business men 
handling the commercial interests of 
West Bay City, Michigan, president 
of the Phoeni.x Brewing Company, and secre- 
tary and treasurer of The Mohr Hardware 
Company, was born in Schney, Bavaria, Ger- 
many, March 10, 1867, and is a son of John 
G. and Elizabeth (Schramm) Mohr. 

George Mohr, our subject's grandfather, 
was a native of Saxony, Germany, and spent 
the greater part of his life in Eisleben, engaged 
in farming and in conducting a pottery busi- 
ness. He married Katherine Roemer, who 
was a nati\e of the same place as he. 

John G. Mohr was born in Saxony in 1824 
and died July 4, 1873. He learned the potter's 
trade and followed it through life and in addi- 
tion operated a small farm of his own. He 
married Elizabeth Schramm, who was a daugh- 
ter of Erhardt Schramm. She was born in 
1822 in Staffelstein, Bavaria, but a few miles 
distant from Schney. Nine of their 10 children 
reached maturity, viz: Johanna, wife of Peter 
Pfrenger, of Merzbach, Bavaria ; John G., pro- 
fessor of literature in the Minnesota State Uni- 
versity at Alinneapolis; Christopher, of West 
Bay City, president of The Mohr Hardware 
Company and also in partnership with his 
lirother Fred in a retail clothing business in 



546 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



West Bay City ; Margaret, wife of Max Stoll, 
of Schney, Bavaria; Joseph and Andrew, both 
of Schney, Bavaria ; Katherine ; Fred, of West 
Bay City, vice-president of the People's Sav- 
ings Bank; and Frank H., onr subject. 

Our subject was the youngest in the family 
and was trained in the thorough-going schools 
of his native land until he was 14 years of age, 
when he joined his brother John G., of Minne- 
apolis, and Christopher and Fred, who were 
already established at West Bay City. He 
began to work at the tin and coppersmith's 
trade here and completed his apprenticeship at 
the Pullman car works in Chicago and worked 
subsequently as a journeyman. After six 
years in Chicago, in 1888 he went to Minneap- 
olis and started into business for himself, in- 
stalling furnaces and heating apparatus. Mr. 
Mohr continued in business there until 1903, 
when he returned to West Bay City and organ- 
ized The Mohr Hardware Company, of which 
he is to-day practically the sole owner, which 
deals in hardware, buggies and carriages and 
farm implements. It has grown into one of the 
largest concerns in those lines in Northern 
Michigan. Mr. Mohr was also one of the or- 
ganizers of the Phoenix Brewing Company, an- 
other successful enterprise, and has been its 
president ever since its founding. 

Mr. Mohr was married to Lena Kohler, 
who is a daughter of John and Agatha Kohler, 
of West Bay City, and they have one son, John 
Kohler Mohr. They are members of the Ger- 
man Lutheran Church. Mr. Mohr has taken 
several trips to Europe, visiting Germany, 
Switzerland, France, England and Holland. 

Mr. Mohr's fraternal and social associa- 
tions include membership in Wenona Lodge, 
No. 296, F. & A. M. : Blanchard Chapter. No. 
59, R. A. M., and Scottish Rite bodies up to 
the i8th degree at Bay City, while his connec- 
tions at Detroit are with the Michigan Sov- 



ereign Consistory, S. P. R. S.. and Moslem 
Temple. A. A. 6. U. M. S. He belongs also 
to Lodge, No. 88, B. P. O. E. and to the Ar- 
beiter Unterstuetzung Verein. 

Mr. Mohr usually takes an active interest 
in all public affairs, affecting the welfare of his 
home city and county. Although urged re- 
peatedly to accept nominations on his party 
ticket, he has declined to do so, devoting his 
entire time to his private business affairs. 



ir 



ETHUEL BORTON is one of the suc- 
cessful fruit-growers and well-known 
and highly respected citizens of Bay 
County, Michigan. From 1902 to 
1905 he resided on his 12-acre farm in section 
18, Hampton township. He has recently pur- 
chased 30 acres in section 14, Portsmouth 
township, to which he will soon remove. He 
was born October 10, 1830, in Burlington 
County, New Jersey, and is a son of Captain 
Samuel and Mary Borton. 

The Borton family is an old Quaker one of 
English extraction and it was founded in Phil- 
adelphia in the days when William Penn's 
friends and associates first gathered tliere and 
named it the "City of Brotherly Love." The 
grandfather and four of his brothers were mar- 
iners, captains of seagoing vessels and that 
calling was also adopted by the father of our 
subject. Capt. Samuel Borton was born in 
Burlington County. New Jersey, and died there 
in 1855, aged 60 years. He was thrice mar- 
ried, the mother of our subject being his sec- 
ond wife. She was a daughter of Bethuel and 
Rebecca (Clifton) Borton. of New Jersey, and 
died when her child was but two weeks old. 
Three daughters were born to the first mar- 
riage and one to the third. 

On account of the earlv death of his mother 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



547 



and his father's absence on the water, our sub- 
ject was reared by his grandfather, with whom 
he remained until he was 15 years of age. Dur- 
ing these years he learned much concerning the 
details of fruit-growing as the grandfather 
operated a large fruit farm. When he had 
reached the above mentioned age he concluded 
to try his father's business and went on board a 
trading vessel on the Delaware River which 
carried ship timber and supplies for the navy 
yards, and continued a sailor for four years. 
Then he worked variously as a farmer and 
thresher in Burlington County until 1856, when 
he went to Williams County, Ohio, and worked 
for his uncle Benjamin on a farm located some 
55 miles from Toledo, later taking charge of 
the farm of 240 acres and operating it for nine 
years. 

The opening of the Civil War made neces- 
sary the employment of men to go to the front, 
while it was just as essential that equally brave 
and reliable men should attend to the further- 
ing of the cause at home. Mr. Borton was 
chosen one of the latter and his services were 
duly valued and doubtless the records of the 
secret service in Washington, D. C, could tell 
of many occasions when his courage and brav- 
ery clipped rebellion in the bud, in the rear of 
the fighting army. For these services he never 
charged the government, although he spent 
something like $3,000 of his own money. He 
was busy all through the war and assisted many 
a man in securing a substitute after the drafts 
were made. 

After the close of the war, Mr. Borton went 
to Toledo and bought a small tract of land near 
the city, where he engaged in gardening for 
about 15 years. He owned that fract of verj^ 
valuable land which is now known as "Point 
Place." In 1879 he came to Bay County and 
bought 20 acres of land. He sold a part of 
this and then added five acres, so that he had 



16 acres, which he subsequently sold for $7,000. 
He then moved to Millington, where he spent 
three years, also engaged in farming. In 1902 
he came back to Bay County and purchased his 
present place. This farm he sold early in 1905 
and purchased 30 acres in section 14, Ports- 
mouth township, of which he will take posses- 
sion in a short time. His knowledge and ex- 
perience have made him wonderfully success- 
ful in all his gardening and agricultural oper- 
ations. In one year the returns from 1 1 acres 
of garden produce and small fruits were 
$2,385. He paid $100 an acre for his farm in 
section 18, Hampton township, on which he 
made many improvements, erecting substantial 
buildings, making it one of the rich garden 
spots of the county. On this farm he has 1,000 
peach trees and all kinds of berries and the 
yield is something enormous. His trees and 
vines seem to recognize his e.xperienced hand- 
ling and reward his care and attention with 
generous fruitage from every limb and branch. 
He is an authority on fruit-growing in this 
section. 

Mr. Borton was married first, in 1850, to 
Caroline Stockton, of New Jersey, and they 
had three children: Edmond L., of Toledo; 
Mary E., wife of Jacob Carr of Chippewa Lake. 
Michigan; and Benjamin F., of Esse.xville. He 
was married second, in 1878, to Sarah M. 
d'Isay, who was bom August 8, 1844, at Lun- 
teren, the Netherlands, and came to the United 
States with her parents when a child of four 
years. She is a daughter of Capt. Joseph and 
Aegidia Jacoba (Hansen) d'Isay, the father a 
native of Belgium and the mother of Amster- 
dam, the Netherlands. Captain d'Isay was an 
officer in the army of the Netherlands. His 
death took place at Essexville, and that of his 
wife at Toledo, Ohio, where they lived for 
some years. Captain d'Isay spent 13 years in 
.Vrnhem. the Netherlands, — from 1873 ^o 1886. 



548 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



— and had only been 17 days with his daughter 
in Essexvihe when he died. The children of 
Mr. Borton's second marriage were: Barbara 
Helena, wife of Henry Koth, of Bay City ; and 
Charlotte M. and John C. Fremont, both at 
home. 

Mr. Borton has always been a stanch Re- 
publican. In 1856 he recalls with pride that he 
carried a Fremont flag and that he had a chance 
to shake the honest hand of the great "Path- 
finder" when he visited Saginaw, 20 years 
ago. During his residence in Toledo he served 
on various civic boards and was a member of 
the school committee, which secured the erec- 
tion of five school houses in that city. He 
served also in similar offices in Bay County 
and has been active in working for good roads 
through Hampton township. Mr. Borton is 
one of the real representative citizens of this 
section and enjoys a large measure of public 
esteem. 

He then moved to Millington, where he 
spent three years, also engaging in farming. In 
1902 he came back to Bay County and pur- 
chased his present place. This farm he sold 
early in 1905 and purchased 30 acres in section 
14, Portsmouth township, of which he will take 
possession in a short time. 




OHX B. LAING, one of the most prom- 
inent citizens of Bay City, holds the 
office of county commissioner of 
schools. He was born in Norfolk 
District. Ontario. Canada, in 1856, and is a 
son of John and Sarah E. (Youmans) Laing, 
and a grandson of George and Elizabeth 
(Laing) Laing. 

John Laing was a native of Scotland, born 
in Aberdeen, on Christmas Day, 1800. He re- 
moved to Ontario, Canada, in 1832, when Nor- 



folk District was a barren wilderness, and by 
indomitable resolution and unremitting toil 
cleared three different farms in succession. He 
remained there until 1879, engaged in agricul- 
tural pursuits, and then moved to Bay County, 
Michigan, where he farmed a few years. He 
lived in Bay City until 1892. He was married 
in Norfolk District, Ontario, to Sarah E. You- 
mans, who was born in Nova Scotia, in 1819, 
and was taken by her parents to Norfolk Dis- 
trict, Ontario, when she was six months old. 
It was a matter of frequent comment with her 
that her birth and marriage occurred in the 
same years as did similar events in the life of 
Queen Victoria. She died in 1891. 

John Laing became a Mason in Scotland at 
the ag'e of 21 years, and was buried with Ma- 
sonic ceremonies at Bay City, Michigan. He 
passed away January 6, 1901, at Chicago, Illi- 
nois in the home of his daughter ^Irs. Lewis 
Berger, when more than 100 years old, having 
lived in three centuries. He retained his facul- 
ties until a few months before his death. Al- 
though possessing but a common-school edu- 
cation, he was well-read and well-informed and 
kept abreast of the times. He had lived in Chi- 
cago since 1892. 

Ten children resulted from the union of 
John Laing and Sarah E. Youmans, namely : 
Matilda (Wayne), who died at the age of 29 
years; Catherine L., widow of Lewis Berger, 
of Chicago ; Mary, wife of Edward Wilkinson, 
of Chicago; Rachel, wife of William I. Gel- 
naw, of Bay City, Michigan ; Jennie, widow of 
Henry Schafer, of Chicago ; John B. ; George 
W., of Chicago; Garrie C, city editor of the 
Bay City Times; Louis N., deceased; and 
Mahlon D., of Chicago. 

John B. Laing came with his parents to 
Bay City in 1879. He was reared on a farm 
and attended the public and high schools of 
Simcoe, Norfolk District, Ontario, Canada, 







HOLY ROSARY ACADEMY 



J 




ST 



. BONIFACE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PAROCHIAL BUILDINGS 




REV. JOHN G. WYSS 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



553 



after whicli lie taught school for some time. He 
then pursued a course of study in Fenton Col- 
lege, at Fenton\-ille, Michigan, where he grad- 
uated with the class of 1894. Among the 
schools which he subsequently taught were 
ones at North Williams, Linwoocl and Amelith 
and in Merritt township, all in Bay County. He 
has pursued the profession of teaching for more 
than 20 years. He served nine years as a mem- 
ber of the School Board, where he gained an 
experience which has proved useful to him in 
his present office. He was elected county com- 
missioner of schools in April, 1903, and his 
term of service began on July ist, following. 
His ofifice is in the Phoenix Block. 

Air. Laing married Jessie Sprague, a na- 
tive of New York, and they have a son, John 
Harold, who lives with his aunt in Chicago. 

In politics, Mr. Laing is a strong Repub- 
lican, and has served his party as a delegate to 
county, State and congressional conventions. 
Fraternally, he is a member of the Knights of 
the Modern Maccabees and the Benevolent and 
Protective Order of Elks. 




EV. JOHN G. WYSS, pastor of St, 
Boniface Catholic Church, at Bay, 
City, Michigan, one of the most zeal- 
ous and faithful priests of the Catho- 
lic Church in all Michigan, is compar- 
atively a young man, although he has accom- 
plished what might well be regarded as the 
fruits of a lifetime. 

Father Wyss was born June 24, i860, at 
Reiden, Canton of Luzern, Switzerland. His 
preliminary education was obtained at Sarnen, 
in the Canton of Unter-Waklen, and his class- 
ical cfHirse was completed at Engelberg, where 
excellent advantages were offered. With this 



sound foundation, the young man came to seek 
an education in American schools, knowing 
that his life work would probably be in this 
field. He arrived in the United States in Octo- 
ber, 1882. and entered the Pro\-incial Seminary 
at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the study of phil- 
osophy and theology. .\t this institution he 
was graduated June 24, 1887, and on the 29th 
of the month he was ordained priest by Rt. 
Rev. Henry Joseph Richter, D. D., Bishop of 
the Diocese of Grand Rapids. 

The young priest was sent first to St. James 
parish, at Montague, Muskegon County, Mich- 
igan, where he remained eight months and was 
then assigned to his present charge, coming to 
St. Boniface parish in 1888, when he was but 
28 years of age. His assuming charge of this 
parish brought new life to it and ere long his 
work began to show the effects of the masterly 
hand which had taken the helm here. Giving 
his attention first to the rebuilding and im- 
provement of the parish school-house and the 
Sisters' home, he arranged for the purchase of 
a lot at Lincoln and McKinley avenues as an 
addition to the school grounds, and subse- 
quently he bought still another lot, on Lincoln 
avenue. 

The crowded condition of the old church 
gave him serious thoughts for a time, as the 
building of a new one would require a greater 
outlay than the parish seemed able to afford, 
but he was agreeably surprised to see how will- 
ing!)' his parishioners came forward as soon as 
they had learned to trust and reverence him. 
Hence the building of a new church was com- 
menced in October, 1896, and on June 4, 1899, 
the church was solemnly consecrated. Father 
Wyss and his congregation being able to rejoice 
not only in its completion but also in the fact 
that it was free from debt. St. Boniface has 
the distinction of being the first Catholic 



30 



554 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Church in the Diocese of Grand Rapids that has 
been consecrated. 

This beautiful building, in its external ap- 
pearance, is in every way a credit to the city, 
while within its decorations are not only seemly 
but artistic and inspiring. A number of ex- 
quisite memorial windows have been placed, 
and some of the religious paintings equal those 
which adorn the churches of older countries. 

Father Wyss has continued his efforts for 
the advancement of his parish, and another re- 
sult of his energ\' is shown in the handsome 
parochial residence of brick and concrete which 
adjoins the church property. Every modern 
con\enience to add to the comfort of the resi- 
dent priest and for the requirements of the 
parish have been introduced, resulting in a 
much finer church home than many older and 
larger parishes enjoy. Adjoining Father 
Wyss' residence but independent of it is the 
fine new brick school building to be occupied 
by the Sisters of St. Dominic, as an academy, 
under the name of the Holy Rosary Academy, 
a select boarding school. It is under the super- 
vision of Mother Superioress Aquinata, O. S. 
D., who has a corps of able teachers. This is 
the largest academical institution in the Dio- 
cese of Grand Rapids. It will be ready for 
occupancy in September, 1905. The Sisters 
will find in their new quarters adequate room 
for carrying out many plans as to higher edu- 
cation and more extended scholarship, aims 
very dear to their hearts. The new building, 
when completed, will be a great structure 100 
by 100 feet, extending to Birney street, and it 
will be strictly modern throughout, and will 
accommodate 200 pupils. The curriculum in- 
cludes all the higher branches with special at- 
tention paid to art and music. 

As Father Wyss looks back over these 
fruitful years, he must feel, indeed, that his 
work has been l:)lessed. He has been 



able to work harmoniously with his con- 
gregation and stands in the position of 
priest, father and faithful friend to every one. 
Outside his own religious body, he has won 
admiration and respect, and turn where he will, 
in Bay City, finds all faces friendly and re- 
spectful. A portrait of Father Wyss and views 
of St. Bonifice Church, Holy Rosary Academy 
and the parochial buildings appear on fore- 
going pages. 




rSTIN WEXTWORTH, senior mem- 
ber of the firm of J. & G. K. Went- 
worth, which is extensively engaged 
in lumbering, with offices at Bay City, 
Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois, is one of the 
representative men of the former city. He 
was born near Hope, Knox County, Maine, 
March 7. 1834, and is a son of Leonard and 
?^Iary (Arnold) Wentworth. 

The ancestry of the Wentworth family is 
traceable back to the time of William the Con- 
queror, and includes many who have attained 
prominence in the annals of public and civic 
life. It has furnished New Hampshire witn 
several governors, and "Long John" \\^ent- 
worth, who was mayor of Chicago, a member 
of Congress and a man of national reputation. 
This family possesses one of the oldest gen- 
ealogies in the world, as is shown in a publica- 
tion of two volumes by "Long John" W^ent- 
worth of Chicago, for private circulation 
among his kinsmen. 

The Wentworth family was established in 
America bv William \\'entworth who came 
from Lincoln County. England, where he had 
been baptized at Alford, March 15, 161 5. The 
first indubitable evidence of his presence in this 
country is his signature, with that of Rev. John 
Wheelwright and 33 others, to a "combination 
for a government at Exeter, N. H.," on Oc- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



000 



tober 4, 1639. This combination continued for 
three years. In 1642, he was a juror from the 
town of Wells, Maine, in the York County 
Court, and in 1648 he was constable of Wells. 
He was one of the jury at York County Court 
held at Kittery, Maine, in 1647 ^nd 1649. As 
he did not receive a grant of land there, it is 
doubtful whether he ever intended to make 
that place his permanent home. He was first 
taxed at Dover, New Hampshire, in 1650, and 
he served five terms as selectman of that town. 
He was moderator of the Dover town meeting 
in 1 661, and became elder in what is now 
known as the First Church of Dover. The 
records show him to have owned land in Wells, 
Maine, in 1657. He was one of the seven 
wealthiest men of the Dover tax list, and after 
his death on March 15, 1697, his estate was ap- 
praised at £97, 1 6s., 4d. His wife's given name 
was Elizabeth. Among his oldest children was 
John, the first record of whom is his enrollment 
on the tax list of Dover, New Hampshire, in 

1668. He took the oath of fidelity June 21, 

1669, and as he must then have been 21 years 
old he was born some time prior to 1649. His 
name appears as plaintiff in a number of law 
suits, one in Dover, New Hampshire, and one 
in York, Maine. Dover suffered greatly at that 
time from depredations by the Indians, which 
probably was the cause of his removal to Dor- 
chester, Massachusetts. On October 20, 1680, 
he and his wife Martha conveyed to John Har- 
mon 100 acres of land in \\'ells, INIaine. and 
the next known of him is at Punkapaug, now 
Canton, Massachusetts, where his name appears 
in a deed from Indians to Mehitable Eames. 

The next in line of descent to our subject 
was Shubael W'entworth, who was a farmer 
and blacksmith at Stoughton, Alassachusetts, 
where he served as clerk of the precinct. He 
was first married April 11, 1717. to Damaris 
Hawes, who died at Stoughton December 7, 



1739. He died in 1759. They were parents of 
Sion Wentworth, great-grandfather of our sub- 
ject, who was born at Stoughton, Massachu- 
setts, March 31, 1725. He was a blacksmith at 
Weston, Massachusetts, and was the owner of 
considerable land. He married Hannah Pet- 
tingill, who died of consumption, January 29, 
1780. He died of consumption, November 9, 
1776, and his widow subsequently was married 
to Joshua Whittemore of Sharon, Massachu- 
setts. Sion Wentworth, grandfather of our 
subject, was born in Sharon, Massachusetts, 
May 30, 1769, and died in Hope, Maine, Feb- 
ruary 18, 1842. He was married at Warren, 
Maine, March 19, 1794, to Mary Morgan, who 
was born April 13, 1776. and of the children 
born to them Leonard was the oldest. 

Leonard Wentworth was born in Hope, 
Knox County, Maine, February 22, 1796, and 
engaged in farming and lumbering throughout 
his active life. He was a Whig and Republican 
in politics, and although taking an active inter- 
est in public afifairs was never a politician. He 
served some years as a member of the School 
Board. He was a very vigorous man physi- 
cally, was of a retiring disposition and had the 
courage to maintain his stand for what he con- 
sidered right. He was of benevolent inclina- 
tions, and was much respected wherever known. 
On January 21, 1827, he married Mary Arnold, 
who was born in Appleton township, Knox 
County, Maine, on July 6. 1806, and 
was a daughter of William .\rnold. They 
were parents of the following children : 
Elizabeth, wife of Lerkin Safford, of 
Kelso, North Dakota: Augustus L., of 
Kelso, North Dakota : Delphina, deceased, 
who was the wife of Elisha Safford. of Hope, 
Maine, also deceased : Justin, whose name heads 
this sketch : Veranus, of Newtonville, Massa- 
chusetts: Mary A., deceased wife of James 
Trowbridee: \\''illiam A., a member of a Maine 



556 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



regiment during the Civil War, who was killed 
at the battle of Thatcher's Run, February 6, 
]865; George K.. of Chicago, Illinois, who is 
in partnership with his brother, Justin : Sion 
R., of Portland, Oregon; and Nelson L., of 
Sanilac County, Michigan. ^Irs. W'entworth 
died in 1851. 

Justin Wentworth remained on the home 
farm until he reached the age of 20 years. On 
September i, 1855, he started West for Michi- 
gan. After a stay of a couple of weeks at De- 
troit, he proceeded to Tuscola County and 
worked in the woods by the month for one 
firm for four years. He then took a farm and 
engaged in farming in that county for five 
years, after which he sold out and purchased a 
farm, which is now in the village of Vassar. He 
has 325 acres, which are under a high state of 
cultivation and devoted to general farming and 
stock-raising. He has made a specialty of thor- 
oughbred Durham and Polled Durham cattle 
(a large number of them being registered) and 
of thoroughbred Berkshire hogs. He also has 
raised fine poultry, his favorites being the thor- 
oughbred Buff Plymouth Rocks. He raised 
grain extensively for years, feeding all except 
the wheat to his stock, and has what is consid- 
ered the best wheat farm in that section of the 
State. 

His farming has been done in connection 
with other business enterprises. As early as 
i860 he began lumbering on his own account, 
doing an extensive business at buying- and sell- 
ing logs. In 1868 he formed a partnership 
with his brother, George K. Wentworth, and 
the firm of J. & G. K. Wentworth has since 
existed. They had headquarters at Vassar un- 
til 1870. when the}^ opened an office in Bay 
City. From that time on they have manu- 
factured all kinds of lumber as well as dealt in 
logs, and have timber lands in all parts of Mich- 
igan and in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon, 



Washington and Alabama. Tliey also main- 
tain an office in Chicago, of which George K. 
Wentworth has charge. 

The subject of this sketch is vice-president 
of the German- American Sugar Company, vice- 
president of the Bay City Bank and a director 
and vice-president of the Bank of Vassar. 

Justin \\'entworth was united in marriage 
with Sophronia Merrill, of Brewer, Maine, who 
died leaving four sons. The two oldest — 
George W. and ^Villiam A. — died at the age 
of 21 years. The two sons now living are: 
Norris R., of the firm of Ross & Wentworth, 
Bay City, who married Martha Agnew of 
Grand Rapids and has a son, John Justin ; and 
Lloyd J., manager of the Portland Lumber 
Company, of Portland, Oregon. This company 
succeeded the Portland Lumber Manufacturing 
Company in 1901. and has for its president 
George K. Wentworth. Lloyd J. Wentworth 
is vice-president and general manager. Our 
subject formed a second union with Susie L. 
Teller, of Vassar, by whom he has two chil- 
dren : Hazel and Harold. The family attend 
the First Presbyterian Church of Bay City. 
Mr. Wentworth has consistently supported the 
Republican party since reaching man's estate. 



HATFORD A. HOWELL, who is 
one of the most prominent farmers 
of Merritt township. Bay County, 
Michigan, is the owner of much 
property in that township and resides on a 
homestead of 86 acres in section 14. He was 
born in Porter township, Niagara County, New 
York, November 21, 1841, and is a son of John 
and Phoebe (Vrooman) Howell. 

The paternal grandparents of our subject 
were natives of Holland, and removed with 
their familv at an earlv date to the old Holland 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



557 



Purchase in New York State. \\'itli the excep- 
tion of three years spent in Eaton County, 
Michigan, John Howell lived in New York 
State throughout his entire life and followed 
farming", dying at the age of 62 years. He 
married Phcehe X'rooman, who was born in 
Niagara County, New York, and was a daugh- 
ter of Tunis Vrooman, who was a native of 
Holland. Mrs. Howell died at the age of 50 
years, leaving the following children : Henry 
S., a prosperous citizen of Independence, Mis- 
-souri; S. J., an instructor in the Oswego (New 
York) High School; Phoebe J. (Kinney), who 
died in New York ; Jackson, who died in Tus- 
cola County. Michigan ; Chatford A. ; Agnes, 
who died in New York; Ella (Moore), of 
California; and Frank H., of Tuscola County, 
Michigan. 

Chatford A. Howell was reared on a farm 
in Niagara County, New York, and in April, 
1864, enlisted in Company G, 179th Reg., New 
York Vol. Inf., under Col. William N. Craig, 
of Elmira. The regiment was sent to Elmira, 
New York for drill and three months later was 
sent to City Point, Virginia. The first en- 
gagement was in the fight and mine explosion 
at Petersburg, after which occurred skirmishes 
in an attempt to cut off Lee's army in its re- 
treat to Richmond. Mr. Howell w^as then de- 
tailed as commissary sergeant to see that the 
guards at Alexandria received their rations. 
Our sui)ject next returned to Elmira witli his 
regiment, where both officers and men were 
given a grand reception and banquet by their 
colonel. They were there honorably discharged 
in July, 1865. In September of that year. Mr. 
Howell moved to Saginaw County, Michigan. 
He soon acquired I\y purchase a tract of 80 
acres of woodland in section 13. township 13, 
range 6, in what is now IMerritt township (then 
a part of Portsmouth) . Bay County. Upon his 
arrival he had but $5 in money, and he lived 



in a log house, 18 by 26 feet in dimensions for a 
number of years. He cleared and cultivated 
about 40 acres of this tract, and lived upon it 
for 16 years. He then sold the property and 
purchased three acres at Munger, where he 
conducted a general store for a period of 10 
years. During this time he had purchased i6:j 
acres in section 14, Merritt township, upon 
which he located after selling his store. He 
built a dwelling and barns and set out a fine 
orchard, and has since made this his home- 
stead. Of the home farm, which had grown 
through several purchases, in recent years he 
gave a 40-acre tract to each of two sons. He 
now owns 86 acres in section 14 and 160 acres 
in section i, Merritt township, and 105 acres in 
Gibson township. He has made extensive im- 
provements, successfully engaged in general 
farming and stock-raising and has become one 
of the most prosperous citizens of the town- 
ship. 

Mr. Howell has taken an earnest part in 
the development of the community and has 
served during the past nine years as supervisor. 
He was tow^iship clerk two years, justice of 
the peace 12 years, drain commissioner two 
terms, and school director 16 years. While a 
member of the Board of Supervisors, he was 
chairman of the board for three years and .set 
in motion a suit against Tuscola County, in- 
volving water rights, which is now pending in 
the Supreme Court. Mr. Howell cast his first 
vote for Abraham Lincoln while serving in the 
arm}', and has been a Republican ever since, 
frequently serving as a delegate to county con- 
ventions. 

Chatford A. Howell was united in marriage 
at Bridgeport. Saginaw County. Michigan, in 
1866, with Mary Bell Whitney, who was born 
in Wayne County, Ohio. January 6, 1845, ''^"^ 
is a daughter of John P. and Hannah (Robin- 
son) Whitney, natives of Ohio and Indiana, re- 



558 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



specti\ely. Her mother died when she was 
1 1 years old, and she accompanied her father to 
Bridgeport, Saginaw County, Michigan, in 
1857. Four children have blessed this union, 
as follows : Percy W., who married Myrtle D. 
Young and lives on a farm near his father ; 
Sidney J., who married Margaret Whiteside, 
of Bay City, and has three children; Edward 
A., who married Rose Young, of Munger, — 
he is mail carrier on Route No. i, R. F. D., 
from Bay City, and owns a farm adjoining that 
of his father; and George L. D., who resides at 
home. Mr. Howell is a member of the Na- 
tional League of Veterans and Sons, of Bay 
City, and is the oldest past commander of the 
K. O. T. Tvl. tent in ]\Ierritt township. 






ILLIAM PEOPLES, supervisor of 
Beaver township. Bay County, 
Michigan, and one of the active 
politicians of the neighborhood, 
was born October 22, 1854, in Jefferson 
County, New York, and is a son of Henry and 
Adaline (Doty) Peoples. 

In 1866 the parents of Mr. Peoples came to 
what is now Beaver township. Bay County, 
Michigan, which was then included in Will- 
iams township. Here the father preempted 80 
acres of land, 40 of which is the old homestead 
on which our subject resides, in addition to 
W'hich he owns a tract of 48 acres just across 
the road from his home farm. The other 40 
acres of the original preemption is owned by 
our subject's mother and brother. The father 
died in September, 1903, in his 73d year. The 
mother is still living at the age of 71 years. 

William Peoples attended the district 
schools of Beaver township, spent a year in the 
West Bay City High School and then went to 
work in the lumber camps in the woods, and 



was employed five seasons by the Ballon Lum- 
ber Company. 

On October 8, 1879, ^^^- Peoples was mar- 
ried to Catherine Farquharson, who is a daugh- 
ter of John and Catherine (Forbes) Farqu- 
harson, who were born in Scotland. ]\Irs. 
Peoples was born after her parents removed to 
Canada. Mr. and Mrs. Peoples have seven cliil- 
dren : Grace, born August 5, 1881 ; Edith, born 
February 15, 1882, who married Charles Berg- 
told; John, born December 31, 1883; Henry, 
born November 28, 1885 ; Roy, born December 
20, 1887; Alice, born November 28, 1889, and 
William Forbes, born November 25, 1893. 

Mr. Peoples has always been more or less 
prominent in public affairs in his township. He 
was township clerk for eight terms, township 
treasurer for eight years and is now serving his 
fourth year as township supervisor. For some 
10 years he served as school moderator and has 
always been interested in school development. 
He is somewhat independent in his religious 
views, but has a strong leaning to the Methodist 
Church. He belongs to the Maccabees. In 
political faith he is a Democrat. 




WILSON CRESSEY, a leading busi- 
ness citizen of Bay City, Michigan, 
secretary of the German-American 
Sugar Company, one of the city's 
largest and most successful enterprises, was 
born at Detroit, Michigan, May 5, 1866, and is 
a son of Col. Edward Potter aufl Caroline 
Frances (Brooks) Cressey. 

Col. Edward P. Cressey, father of our sub- 
ject, was born at Delhi, Delaware County, New 
York, May 19, 1836. He entered the United 
States Military Academy at West Point, New 
York, ALav i, 1854, and was graduated and 
appointed brevet 2d lieutenant in the regiment 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



559 



of mounted rifles, July i, 1858. On May 14, 
1 86 1, he was promoted to the rank of lieuten- 
ant; was commissioned ist lieutenant of the 
Third United States Cavalry, on August 3, 
1 86 1 and was made captain on July 17, 1862. 
From 1858 to 1861 he served with his regi- 
ment in New Mexico and participated in skirm- 
ishes with the Indians at Canon de Muerto on 
February 18, i860, and an active engagement 
with the Confederates at Mesilla on July 25, 
1861, being taken prisoner at San Augustine 
Springs, New Mexico, July ly, 1861. He was 
on garrison duty at Fort Wayne, Michigan, as 
a paroled prisoned until he was exchanged Au- 
gust 2^, 1862. Rejoining his regiment in July, 
1863, at Memphis, Tennessee, he marched with 
it to Huntsville, Alabama, and participated in 
the battle of Cherokee Station, October 21, 
1863. In the spring of 1864 he was ordered to 
St. Louis with his regiment; was sick in the 
hospital during the winter of 1864-65 and 
upon his recovery was placed on mustering and 
dispersing duty until the close of the war. For 
faithful and meritorious service during the war, 
he received brevets as major and lieutenant- 
colonel to date from March 13, 1865. 

After the close of the war. Colonel Cressey 
continued on frontier duty until he was hon- 
orably mustered out of the service January i, 
1871. For several years after he left the army. 
Colonel Cressey was engaged in business in 
China, Japan and among the South Sea Islands. 
In 1874 he entered into the service of the Pa- 
cific I\Iail Steam Ship Company, with which he 
continued until his death, at which time he 
was occupying a very responsible and impor- 
tant position in the San Francisco offices of the 
company. 

Colonel Cressey was a prominent Mason 
and Knight Templar and he was a comrade of 
the Grand Army of the Republic. He was 
elected a companion of the first class (No. 



968), Commandery of California, Military 
Order of the Loal Legion of the United 
States, March 30, 1892, insignia number 9405. 
He was a splendid specimen of manhood, an 
educated and efficient soldier, a genial and hon- 
orable gentleman and a true friend, respected 
by all who knew him. He died at Altruria, 
California, June 21, 1899. 

The mother of our subject was a ladj' whose 
old and honorable ancestry is clearly traced 
through many generations. She was a sweet 
and gracious lady who passed out of life while 
her son was but a child. She was married to 
Colonel Cressey on April 20, 1864, and they 
had two children : Frances, of Detroit, who was 
Ixirn March 23, 1865, and E. Wilson, of this 
sketch. Mrs. Cressey was born November 26, 
1 84 1 and died September 2"], 1867. Both Col- 
onel Cressey and his wife were members of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church. 

The Brooks family, of which the mother of 
our subject was a member, was founded in 
America by one Thomas Brooks who crossed 
from England in the ship "William," in 1635, 
when he was 21 years of age. He was at York, 
Maine, according to the historian, Savage, in 
1640 and purchased land there from Sir Fer- 
dinand Georges. He died May 21, 1667, and 
his wife, Grace, born in May, 1622, died the 
same year. He Avas a deputy to the General 
Court at Boston, in 1642. 

John Brooks, son of Thomas and Grace 
Brooks, married Mary Martyn. She was a 
daughter of Richard and Margaret (Trelaw- 
ney) Martyn and a granddaughter of Sir Rob- 
ert Trelawney. 

Caleb Brooks, son of John and Mary (Mar- 
tyn) Brooks, married Mary Fogg, daughter uf 
Daniel Fogg, of Kittery, Maine. 

John Brooks, son of Caleb and Mary 
(Fogg) Brooks, married .-\nnah or Hannah 
Staples. 



56o 



HISTORY OF BAY COUxXTY 



John 3ilartyn Brooks, son of John and Han- 
nah (Staples) Brooks, was born March ii, 
1736 and died in 1825. He married Mary 
Hoare, who was probably born August 11, 
1736 and died December 23, 1832. 

John Brooks, son of John Martyn and 
Mary (Hoare) Brooks, was born at Lincoln- 
ville. Maine. June 13, 1785, and died at Colum- 
bus, Ohio, February 19. 1869. He married 
Phoebe Perkins, a daughter of Joseph and 
Phoebe (Weare) Perkins. She was born at 
Castine, Maine, April 18, 1787, and died in 
December, 1864. They were the great-grand- 
parents of our subject. 

Nathaniel \\'ilson Brooks, our subject's 
grandfather, was born at Castine, Maine, Au- 
gust 27, 1808, and died at Detroit, Michigan, 
September 30, 1872. He was an early pio- 
need in Michigan, lived at Detroit and for 
years operated a sawmill at Salzburg. Bay 
County. On March 21, 1838, he married Car- 
oline Frances Jeffords, at Columbus, Ohio, 
where she was born May 12, 181 8. She djed 
in Detroit, October 25, 1885. 

Through our subject's grandmother Brooks, 
his ancestry is traced to distinguished fore- 
bears. The mother of Mrs. Brooks was Sarah 
Elliott Leavenworth. She was born May 10, 
1780, and married John Jeffords, who died in 
1842, aged 34 years. She was a daughter of 
Maj. Eli and Sarah (Elliott) Leavenworth. 
The mother was born November 30, 1750, at 
New Haven. Connecticut, and was a daugh- 
ter of John and Lydia (Atwater) Elliott and a 
granddaughter of John and Mary (Wolcott) 
Elliott : a great-granddaughter of John and 
Elizabeth (Gookin) Elliott, and a great-great- 
granddaughter of Rev. John Elliot and Ann 
Mumfourd, the former of whom was the noted 
apostle to the Indians. 

Maj. Eli Leavenworth was born December 
10. 1748, and was married December 23. 1778. 



to Sarah Elliott, daughter of John and Lydia 
(Atwater) Elliott. Major Leavenworth was 
first appointed by the Legislature, captain of 
the loth Company of the Second Regiment of 
New Haven. Julv i, 1775 and was honorably 
discharged December loth of the same year. 
He reentered the service in 1776 as captain in 
Colonel Webb's regiment of Continentals and 
marched from New York to Boston with Wash- 
ington, under whose order he engaged in forti- 
fying Brooklyn, August 27, 1776. He was not 
a participant in the battle of Long Island, but 
did take part in the battles of Trenton and 
Princeton, which followed soon after. At the 
request of Washington he remained with his 
regiment six weeks after its term of enlistment 
had expired. On May 27, 1777, he was com- 
missioned major in the Sixth Continental Line 
Regiment, Col. Charles Webb's, which went 
into camp at Peekskill. He retired in the spring 
of 1781 and was bre\-eted colonel, and he be- 
came a member of the Connecticut Society of 
the Order of the Cincinnati. 

The parents of Major Leavenworth were 
Rev. Mark and Ruth (Peck) Leavenworth. 
The former was born August 27. 171 1, at Strat- 
ford, Connecticut, and died at \\'aterbury, Con- 
necticut, August 27, 1799. He graduated at 
Yale College in 1737 and was ordained and 
settled as pastor of the church at Waterbury, 
where he continued until his decease. On Feb- 
ruary 6, 1 740, he married Ruth Peck, a daugh- 
ter of Jeremiah Peck of Waterbury. 

The father of Rev. Mark Leavenworth was 
Dr. Thomas Leavenworth, who in 1699 mar- 
ried Mary Jenkins, daughter of David Jenkins 
and settled at Stratford. Connecticut. His 
father, Edmund Leavenworth, emigrated from 
Germany to America and settled at Hunting- 
ton, then a part of Waterbury, prior to 1680. 

The early childhood of our subject was 
spent at Detroit, but the earlv death of his 




PATRICK KEATING, Sr. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



563 



mother ;;nd the enforced absence of his father 
broke up tlie home and he went to live with his 
grandparents, with whom he remained as their 
own son until their decease. After completing 
the common school course, he attended the 
University of Michigan and upon his return 
began to learn the lumber business. He began 
at the bottom of the ladder and worked his way 
up through the various positions until he be- 
came secretary of the company whose employ 
he had entered in the humblest position. In 
1895 lis became president of the Kern Manu- 
facturing Company and filled that position until 
1898 when he entered the employ of the Michi- 
gan Sugar Company. He continued with this 
company until its combination with the Bay City 
Sugar Company, at which time he accepted his 
present responsible place as secretary of the 
German-American Sugar Company. 

This company was incorporated February 
18, 1901, with these officers: Rasmus Hanson, 
of Grayling. Michigan, president: Justin Went- 
worth, vice-president ; E. Wilson Cressey, sec- 
retary ; and John C. Ross, treasurer. Tlie first 
campaign of this company was in 1901-02. The 
factory was originally planned for a capacity of 
400 tons, but its capaciti has been increased to 
600 tons. The season of 1904-05 produced 
over 8.000,000 pounds of sugar. It is an in- 
corporated company and a large amount of its 
stock is held by producers of sugar beets. 

On October 13, 1891, Mr. Cressey was 
married to Cornelia William Buckley, who is a 
daughter of Henry J. Buckley, of Detroit. 
They have one child. Cornelia M., who was 
born August 20. 1892. Mr. and Mrs. Cressey 
are members of the First Presbyterian Church 
of Detroit and they attend the Presbyterian 
Church in Bay City. 

Mr. Cressey is interestefl in public affairs 
but is in no way a politician. He is identified 
with the Republican party. He has many 



pleasant social connections, being a member of 
the Sons of the American Revolution, the Bay 
City Club, and of his university society, the 
Chi Psi. For five years he served as presi- 
dent of the Bay City Boat Club and still con- 
tinues a member of its directing board. 



ATRICK KEATING, Sr. one of the 
representative citizens of Merritt 
township. Bay County, Michigan, 
whose portrait is shown on the oppo- 
site page, has a fine farm of 140 acres in section 
22. He has successfully engaged in general 
farming, stock-raising and fruit-growing, but 
his greatest success has been as an apiarist. 

Mr. Keating was born near Cahersiveen, 
County Kerry, Ireland, March 10, 1852, is a 
son of James and Norah (Hollahan) Keating, 
and grandson of Daniel Keating, who was a 
pilot in early life and aided Ainerican privateers 
during the War of 181 2. James Keating and 
his wife were natives of County Kerry, Ireland, 
where they lived until 1854, the former being 
engaged in farming and fishing. In that year 
he came to America, settling in Pennsylvania, 
where he engaged in railroad work. In 1858 
he moved to Canada and continued in railroad 
work during the remainder of the acti\'e portion 
of his life. He died at Clinton. Ontario, at the 
age of 87 years, and his wife is now liv- 
ing at London, Ontario, at the age of 75 years. 
Mrs. Keating had a brother, Daniel, and two 
cousins who were killed in the Civil War. and 
two other brothers, Michael and John, who 
went to Australia and made large fortunes in 
the gold fields. John Keating, a brother of 
James, served three years in the Union Army 
during the Civil War, and had a son, John, who 
was a lieutenant during tliat war. Mr. and 
Mrs. Keating had six children, as follows: 



564 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Ellen (Blake), of New South Wales, Aus- 
tralia; Patrick; Mary, of New South Wales, 
Australia; Jennie (Dean), of Edmonton, Al- 
berta District, Northwest Territories, Canada; 
Daniel, of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; 
and Michael, a lumberman of Minnesota. 

Patrick Keating was nearly six years old 
when his mother came to America, and joined 
her husband, who was then living in the oil 
region of Pennsylvania. They remained there 
one year and then located near London, On- 
tario. In 1869 our subject went to Pennsyl- 
vania, and in 1870 came to Bay City, Michigan, 
alone. For four seasons he worked on square 
timbers, an occupation he had previously fol- 
lowed on the Allegheny River. He then re- 
moved to Munger, Bay County, when the 
surrounding country was heavily wooded, and 
sparsely settled, and here he cleared land for 
various parties. He then worked on the rail- 
road for three years. He again engaged in 
clearing land, including a tract of 40 acres 
which he had purchased. This he later sold 
and then continued in clearing for others until 
he embarked in the bee business. He continued 
this exclusively for seven years and steadily 
increased his business until his apiary contained 
150 hives and produced annually from 4,000 
to 7.500 pounds of honey. With the proceeds 
of this business he was enabled to buy his pres- 
ent farm of 140 acres in Merritt township in 
1896, and in 1900 he moved upon it. He has 
placed it in a high state of cultivation, has set 
out an orchard, and erected a dwelling, barns 
and a honey house. He also follows general 
farming and stock-raising. 

Mr. Keating was married m Ontario, Can- 
ada, in 1 87 1, to Elizabeth Tighe, by whom he 
has the following children : Daniel, who went 
to Central America and after four years was 
never heard from again, presumably having lost 
his life in the revolution of 1892; James, of 



Wisconsin ; John, who is engaged in ranching 
in the West; Ellen, of Bay City; Michael, of 
Minnesota; Charles, who is engaged in lumber- 
ing; and Patrick, who is at home. 

In 1894 ]\Ir. Keating married his present 
wife, Mrs. Christine Clifton, widow of Frank 
D. Clifton and daughter of Captain John and 
Jane (McAlpin) Graham, natives of Scotland. 
When our subject was at Clinton, Ontario, he 
served as a member of the 33rd Battalion of 
Canadian Volunteers, under Captain Murray. 
Politically, he has been a Greenbacker and a 
Populist, and is now a Democrat. He is a 
charter member and was the first commander 
of Munger Tent, No. 423, K. O. T. M. 




RS. SELINA POWELL, widow of 
the late Capt. John Powell and a 
most highly esteemed and capable 
lad)-, owns and manages a magnifi- 
cent farm of 280 acres, situated in sections 22 
and 2y, Monitor township. Mrs. Powell was 
born at Bristol, England, in October, 1854, and 
is a daughter of Thomas and Sarah Gardner. 

Mrs. Powell was reared in a home of plenty, 
her father being engaged in an excellent busi- 
ness in Bristol. She was educated in a private 
school and was given a chance to acquire many 
accomplishments. She was scarcely through 
school, being only 17 years of age, when she 
married Capt. John Powell, who was a deep-sea 
sailor and a man of means and ability. In 1870 
Captain and Mrs. Powell came to Bay County 
and took possession of the present farm, which 
at that time was all timberland. with the excep- 
tion of 25 acres of clearing. Mrs. Powell has 
had charge of the farm for many years. Cap- 
tain Powell was engaged in a lumber business 
at Bay City and for 18 years owned an interest 
in and was master of the steamer "Racine," 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CTiTZENS. 



56: 



wliich plied between Tonawanda and Buffalo. 

Captain and Mrs. Powell had these chil- 
dren: Ellen, deceased; ]\Iary Florence, wife of 
James McGnill, of Indianapolis, Indiana; John 
Howard, deceased; Ralph; Alice, wife of 
Frank Shaller, of Bay City; Margaret, wife of 
Nicholas Dean, of West Bay City; Nellie, wife 
of Lee Walsh, of West Bay City; and Elsie, 
who resides with her mother. Mrs. Powell 
successfully operates this large estate, with the 
assistance of her son Ralph. The family home 
is a beautiful brick residence, built in modern 
style, with all the comforts and con\eniences of 
a city home. 

Mrs. Powell is a member of Grace Protes- 
tant Episcopal Church, Bay City, West Side. 




ICHAEL GARLAND, one of the 
representative business men of Bay 
City, Michigan, president of the 
M. Garland Company, and major- 
ity owner of the stock in the Valley Iron 
Works, of Bay City, of which he is president, 
was born at Cape \'incent, Jefferson County, 
New York, January 17. 1838, and is a son of 
William H. and Aurelia (Cross) Garland. 

William H. Garland, father of our subject, 
was a native of Leeds, Yorkshire,. England, 
where he was born March 11, 1808. Seven 
years of his life were given to learning the 
machinist's trade, but just as he was prepared 
to make the knowledge profitable, he was 
pressed into the English naval service. After 
some years before Constantinople and other 
ports, he was sent to Canada as one of a body 
of surveyors working in the mountains, and 
tlien his service ended. He first settled at Clay- 
ton, New York, but sulisequcntly removed to 
Cape Vincent, where he l)uilt a machine shop 
and was engaged as its superintendent for a 



number of years. About 1845 he erected for 
himself a sawmill at Warren Settlement, New 
York, and he operated this mill during the re- 
mainder of his active life. He died July 21, 
1 87 1. Politically he was a stanch Whig. 

William H. Garland married Aurelia Cross, 
who was a daughter of Moses H. Cross, who 
was in the military service of the United States 
during the \\'ar of 1812. Of the 11 children 
born to this marriage, nine reached maturity, 
viz.; Michael, of Bay City; Sarah E., born 
February i, 1840; Jane, born May 29, 1842; 
James and Edward (twins), born November 
4, 1843, the former of whom died November 
3, 1864; William Harry, born August 21, 
1848; John, born May 26, 1850; Aurelia, torn 
April 10, 1852: and Cynthia, born August 23, 
1855, who is the wife of Capt. E. T. Rattray, 
of Cleveland, Ohio. The parents were worthy 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
The father was a whole-souled man, full of 
generous impulses. 

Michael Garland was educated in books in 
the local schools, but his natural mechanical 
abilities were encouraged in his father's mill, 
very little of its construction or operation be- 
ing unknown to him while he was still a child 
of tender years. When but 12 years of age he 
was perfectly competent to operate a steam en- 
gine. Naturally he learned the business of 
millwriglit and steam engineer and the knowl- 
edge of these trades has been the basis for much 
experimenting and for innumerable inventions, 
Mr. Garland and his fellow stockholders at this 
time owning some 60 patents for improvements 
in sawmill, windmill and other kinds of ma- 
chinery. 

At the age of 17 years, Michael Ciarland left 
home for the West, going first to Milwaukee. 
Wisconsin, from which point he sailed on Oc- 
tober 17, 1857, -for Mainstee, Michigan. He 
had been engaged to put up a double-cutting 



566 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



circular sawmill for Adam and James Stronach. 
at Old Stronach, Michigan. This contract he 
satisfactorily completed, but when its owners 
were ready to opearte it they could not find 
sawyers of sufficient knowledge to run it. Mr. 
Garland consented to run it through the winter, 
filing for himself and the otiier sawyers, but in 
the spring returned to his parents' home in 
New York, where, at their earnest solicita- 
tion, he remained through the summer. In the 
following year he went to Dubuque, Iowa ; from 
there he proceeded by boat to Cassville, Wis- 
consin, and shortly afterward went to Turkey 
River, Iowa. The summer was spent in that 
locality, full of work, erecting sawmills and 
building freight barges. As operator of a mill 
for Brown LeGraff & Company, at Cassville. 
Wisconsin, he remained in that village about 
two years, and during this period he also com- 
pleted the manufacture of a number of barges, 
in association with Homer Smith, a partnership 
having been formed under the name of Smith 
& Garland. 

About 1859 Garland sold out to his partner 
and returned to Manistee, Michigan, where he 
engaged w-ith the firm of Canfield, Coles & 
Company (lumbermen) and had sole charge of 
the mechanical departments of two mills, in- 
cluding the engines as well as all mill machin- 
ery. He remained in this important and re- 
sponsible position until i860, when he went 
to Chicago. During his stay there he had the 
pleasure of seeing the Prince of Wales, on his 
visit to the United States, who is now King 
Edward VII, of Great Britain. 

From Chicago, Mr. Garland went to what 
was then a more progressive place, one where 
business opportunities were better, Eau Claire, 
Wisconsin, and there he operated a mill until 
June 15, 1862. The Civil War was then at 
its height and the military spirit penetrated 
every industry and aroused patriotic feelings 



in every loyal breast. Mr. Garland was now a 
young- man only 24 years of age and had ac- 
complished more than ma ny men succeed in 
doing in double the time. He was known all 
through the section where he had followed his 
line of work as a thoroughly competent man 
and most reliable engineer. Openings were 
ready for him with many companies, but he 
decided to offer his services to his country, and 
on the last-mentioned date enlisted in Company 
I. 30th Reg., Wisconsin Vol. Inf., and con- 
tinued with that organization until it was mus- 
tered out October 28, 1865, at Madison, Wis- 
consin. 

INIr. Garland spent the winter of 1864-65 
at Fort Union, at the mouth of the Yellowstone 
Ri\-er. and during this period was in a number 
of Indian skirmishes. His mechanical skill 
was frequently called into play in the building 
of lx)ats designed to carry four companies of 
soldiers down to Fort Randall, at Sioux City, 
and he also had charge for 60 days as a non- 
commissioned officer with a guard of privates, 
of a steamboat on the river. He made a trip 
from Fort Union to St. Louis, on the steamer 
"Yellowstone." While at Fort Union he built 
and operated for the government a portable 
sawmill, fitted with circular saws. Another 
experience, far from pleasant, was an attack of 
smallpox, at Yankton, Dakota. 

After his final discharge from military serv- 
ice, Mr. Garland returned to Eau Claire and 
resumed his place in a machine shop there, that 
of superintendent, but later gave it up to rebuild 
a sawmill at Gravel Island, Wisconsin, which 
he had originally assisted in building and which 
had been destroyed by fire. This mill was 
owned by Taylor & Bussey and was fitted with 
gang and circular saws: after he rebuilt it, he 
remained two years as superintendent of all its 
departments. In 1867 he returned to Eau 
Claire, resumed his old position of superin- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



567 



tendent and Ijuilt a comfortable home for liim- 
seli' and wife diere. He next took charge of 
a mill for Ingraham, Canada & Dole, which he 
operated until 1869. During the two years he 
had spent at Gravel Island, he had been in part- 
nersliip with Samuel Sykes, under the firm 
name of Sykes & Garland, and it was during 
this period that he patented his first invention, 
a sawdust feeder for furnaces. A patent was 
granted June 15, 1869, and a second patent on 
May 28, 1872. 

In the fall of 1869, Mr. Garland went to 
Muskegon, Michigan, looking up opportunities 
to sell his sawdust feeder patents, but returned 
to Eau Claire for the winter, returning to 
Muskegon in the spring of 1870. He installed 
a sawdust feeder for O. P. Pillsbury & Com- 
jjany, founded an agency there and then came 
on to Saginaw and Bay City. On March 17, 
1870, he entered into a contract with A. Rust 
& Company, for the introduction of the sa\\(lust 
feeder in their mill. This feeder was installed 
and remains in the mill, which has passed into 
the control of the Kneeland-Bigelow Company, 
of Bay City. In the spring of 1871 he returned 
to Eau Claire and worked through that summer 
for Ingraham. Canada & Company, but came 
back to Bay City in 1872, leaving his family at 
Eau Claire. He entered into the manufacture 
of his invention and of mill machinery. He 
was kept busily occupied in putting up sawmills 
and installing his sawdust feeder all over Mich- 
igan and other lumbering States. For many 
years his office in Bay City was on Water 
street, opposite the Eraser. 

The M. Garland Company as organized has 
Michael Garland as president, H. \V. Garland 
as secretary and treasurer, and Maude G. (iar- 
land as vice-president. With the exception of 
two shares, the stock is all owned in the family. 
The plant covers 13 city lots, on both side of 
23d street and includes a fully ec|uippcd foun- 



dry and machine shop, with every facility for 
manufacturing machinery. Employment is 
given 71 men and the product includes all kinds 
of machinery. Mr. Garland's conveyors are in 
use in all sorts of manufactories all over the 
United States, in sugar houses, wood pulp 
mills, coal mines, etc. In July, 1903, Mr. Gar- 
land and wife purchased the Valley Wind En- 
gine & Iron Works, the product of which is 
windmills, grain grinders and pumps, and here 
also is a splendid foundry and machine shop. 
This plant covers a space of 375 by 100 feet. 
The business was incorporated October 28, 
1903, with Mr. Garland as president; ]\Irs. 
Garland as secretary and treasurer : and W. H. 
Shapley of Toronto, vice-president. 

Mr. Garland was married first to Cyrena L. 
Vradenburg, who was a daughter of Christo- 
pher Vradenburg, of Durand, Wisconsin. One 
child survives this union. Harrison W., who is 
secretary and treasurer of the M. Garland 
Company. Mrs. Garland died February 26, 
I go I. Mr. Garland's present wife was for- 
merly Emma Collins, of Bay City, Michigan. 

Mr. Garland votes with the Republican 
party and takes much interest in politics, but is 
not a seeker for office. He was a charter mem- 
ber of the Bay City Club and is a stockholder 
and regular member of the new club, in which 
his son is also actively interested. 

Mr. Garland has an immense volume of 
accomplished work behind him. In addition to 
his other Ijusiness associations just mentioned, 
he is a member of the firm of Oaks & Garland, 
of \Vest Bay City, manufacturers of a new de- 
vice, in the way of a metal nozzle for a fire hose, 
.so constructed that it can be driven into a solid 
wall of wood. This has met with approval all 
over the country and it is destined to be used 
in every fire department in the world because 
of its general utilil)-. The largest mill Mr. 
Garland ever built, among the many scattered 



568 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



all over the lumbering districts, was the Whit- 
ney & Batchelor mill at Melbourne, Saginaw 
County, Michigan, erected in the winter of 
1878-79. This mill has cut 30,764,000 feet of 
lumber in a season, not running nights, and 
during a season of 202 days of ii}i hours 
each has cut an average of 166,666 feet per 
day, the record for the Saginaw Valley. 

Mr. Garland is not only a man of excep- 
tional business ability, but of most remarkable 
mechanical talent. Personally he possesses a 
winning, courteous manner, is the dispenser of 
generous hospitality and is in the enjoyment of 
universal esteem. 




IT.LIAM CUTHBERT, who oper- 
ates a successful dairy in Bay City, 
Michigan, and is conveniently lo- 
lated at No. 2494 Center avenue, 
is a citizen who enjoys the esteem of all who 
know him and they are many. He was born 
May I, 1864, at Probus, Cornwall, England, 
and he is a son of William and IMary (Grieve) 
Cuthbert. 

The Cuthbert famih' is an old one in Corn- 
wall, the grandfather, Henry Cuthbert, having 
been born there, where he established a large 
brewery. The father of our subject was born 
at Falmouth. He was reared there and subse- 
quently was made inspector of the county con- 
stabulary stationed at Torquav. He died in 

1873- 

At the time of his father's death. William 
Cuthbert of this sketch was a child of only 
II years, but he found a home with an aunt 
with whom he remained until he was 13 years 
old. At this early age he started out to grapple 
A\-idi the world for himself, and he was fortu- 
nate in finding employment with a farmer who 
was kind and considerate to him and with 



whom he remained for 13 years. In 1890 Mr. 
Cuthbert crossed the Atlantic to Canada and 
located near Simcoe, Ontario, where he worked 
on a dairy farm for three years and thus gained 
a practical knowledge of the milk and dairy 
business which has since proved of such ad- 
vantage to him. 

In 1893 ^'f''- Cuthbert came to Bay City and 
went on the Culver farm for one year and 
then purchased his present milk business, which 
he has operated ever since. Mr. Cuthbert 
purveys his own milk and has a 12-year record 
on the wagon, without missing a single day. 
This means a great deal of consideration for his 
patrons, few of whom can show as fair a title 
to fidelity to business. He has a very large 
trade, handling some 60 gallons per day of 
milk and a large quantity of cream. He deals 
both wholesale and retail. 

Mr. Cuthbert married Mrs. Grace (McDon- 
ald) Culver, widow of the late W. H. Culver, 
who left one daughter, Lou. The family at- 
tend the Congregational Church and are liberal 
contributors to its support. 

Mr. Cuthbert is a Republican in politics, but 
he does not take any very active part in cam- 
paign work, his business absorbing the greater 
part of his time. He is a member of the Ma- 
sonic fraternity, lacing a member of Joppa 
Lodge, F. & A. M. 




RS. YETTA VANBUSKIRK, wid- 
ow of the late Richard Vanbuskirk, 
is one of the highly esteemed ladies 
of Merritt ownship, Baj' County, 
where she resides on her fine farm of 100 acres 
which is situated in section 36. Mrs. Vanbus- 
kirk was born JNIarch 4, 1869. in Tuscola 
County. Michigan, and is a daughter of Henry 
and Elizabeth (Betram) Schultz.' 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



569 



The late Richard Vanbuskirk was a son of 
Samuel Vanbuskirk, who was a native of Penn- 
sylvania. Richard was born in Canada, July 
16, 1836. He lived on a farm there until about 
20 years ago, when he came to Bay County, 
where he lived until his death on May 9, 1899. 
When he came here his land was covered with 
timber and it required years of hard work to 
put the home place under its present state of 
cultivation. Mr. Vanbuskirk left several farms 
to his widow, one of these being the home place 
as mentioned, which borders on Tuscola and 
Saginaw counties, and another farm of 40 acres 
at Fair Grove. Mrs. Vanbuskirk sold the latter 
and with the proceeds paid the claims of the 
other heirs. Mr. Vanbuskirk made many im- 
provements on the home farm, put up good 
buildings and left his widow and children sur- 
rounded with much comfort. 

Mrs. Vanbuskirk's mother was twice mar- 
ried and had four children by her first union 
and six by her. second, our subject being one of 
the former. In 1885 she married Richard Van- 
buskirk, and they had six children : May, Ida 
(deceased). Orpha, Fred. Lottie and Grace. 
By a former marriage. Mr. Vanbuskirk had 
three children: Samuel, Isaac and Elisha (de- 
ceased). 




ON. PETER LIND, formerly mayor 
of West Bay City, Michigan, and a 
prominent citizen of Bangor town- 
ship, where he, in association with his 
brother Charles, owns a fine estate of 200 acres, 
located in section 4. was born in November. 
185 1, on an island in Lake Vanern, Sweden, 
and is a son of John and Catherine Lind. 

The father of Mr. Lind was born in Sweden 
in 1822 and died in 1S76. The mother was 
born in 1826, came to America in 1880 and now 
resides in Bangor township. The six children 



of John and Catherine Lind were : Peter ; 
Mary, wife of Frank Sandquist, of Williams 
township; Emma, wife of Charles Johnson, 
of Beaver township ; John, a draftsman in the 
West Bay City shipyards ; and Charles and 
Lena (twins), the former employed in the 
shipyards and also a joint owner of property 
with our subject, and the latter, the widow of 
John Larsen of West Bay City. 

Our subject had made such progress in the 
schools of his native land by the time he was 
15 years of age, that he was given a teacher's 
certificate and prior to coming to America, in 
1870, he had taught school for four years. He 
sailed from Sweden for a port in the State of 
Maine and first had a farm in Aroostook 
County, but subsequently went to lumbering 
in the great timber regions along the Penobscot 
River. In the fall of 1872 he came to Bay 
City and worked first in the woods and in saw- 
mills and then in various shipyards, engaged in 
building boats. From 1887 to 1888 he carried 
on a mercantile business in Bay City and was 
one of the leading business men of the place. 
From 1896 to 1902 he served as mayor of West 
Bay City. He was also a member of the City 
Council for several terms and had much to do 
with shaping political affairs in his part of the 
county. He served also as supervisor from 
\Vest Bay City for two terms and probably has 
refused every local office in the gift of his fel- 
low-citizens. 

Since 1902 Mr. Lind has been interested 
with his brother Charles in the management of 
their 200-acre farm in section 4, Bangor town- 
ship, 100 acres being under a fine state of culti- 
vation. General farming is carried on and 
Mr. Lind has proven himself just as capable a 
farmer as he has been a valued public ofticial. 

On November 23. 1892, Mr. Lind was mar- 
ried to Ellen Croft, who was born at Kingston, 
Canada, and is a daughter of John and Emma 



570 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Croft, the former of whom was l)orn in Ger- 
many and died in 1899. The latter was born in 
England, accompanied her husband to Bay 
City in 1879, 'i"^ still resides here. Mr. and 
Mrs. Lind have five children : Earl, Jennie, 
Elmer, Jessie and Oliver. 

Politically, Mr. Lind is a stanch Republican 
and has always been active in politics. For a 
number of years he was a member of the Li- 
brary Board of West Bay City and has taken 
a public-spirited interest in all matters of civic 
improvement. Coming here unknown and de- 
pendent upon his own efforts, Mr. Lind has 
shown very conclusively what can be accom- 
plished by enterprise, industry and honest busi- 
ness methods. His fraternal connections are 
with Wenona Lodge, No. 296, F. & A. M., and 
Wenona Lodge, No. 221, L O. O. F., both of 
West Bay City. Mrs. Lind is a member of 
the Rebekahs. 




OUIS IvNECHT, one of the older res- 
idents of Portsmouth township and 
the owner of a well-improved, valu- 
able large estate, consisting of 60 
acres, in section 13, where he resides, 40 acres 
in section 14 and 70 acres in section 12, aggre- 
gating 170 acres of fine land, is a well-known 
and much esteemed citizen. He was born on 
February 13, 1849, at Windsor, Ontario, dur- 
ing a short period of residence there of his 
parents, who were Casper and Margaret Ro- 
sina (Kutz) Knecht. 

Casper Knecht was born at Wittenberg, 
Germany, and died in Michigan in 1902, aged 
82 years. He had a long, useful and eventful 
life. At the age of 24 years he came to the 
LTnited States in company with two brothers, 
Louis and Martin. They settled first at De- 
troit, where Casper found work in the car 



shops, having learned the wagon-making trade 
in Germany. He entered the government serv- 
ice as a mechanic during the Mexican War and 
later went to Canada, while his two brothers 
were sent to the front ; one of them while in 
the army was shot three times but survived in 
spite of these wounds, and lived to a good old 
age ; the other brother died from the hardships 
of the service. From Detroit, Casper Knecht 
moved to Howell, Michigan, after a year in 
Ohio, and then came to South Bay City, Bay 
County. He was employed as a clerk in the 
establishment of Charles Sherman for 12 years 
and then purchased a large body of land. At 
one time he owned 160 acres in one tract. Prior 
to his death he sold his land to his children, 
with the exception of 20 acres. He was a good 
manager and left his family well provided for. 
In politics he was a Democrat. In religious 
views he was a Lutheran. 

The mother of our subject was also born at 
Wittenberg, German, and crossed the At- 
lantic Ocean on the same ship that brought 
Casper Knecht to America. They were mar- 
ried in Detroit. She was a most estimable wo- 
man, a worthy wife and good mother. She 
died in 1900, aged 83 years. They had these 
children: Mrs. Mary Shilling, who died aged 
19 years; Louis, of this sketch; Charles, who 
died young at Detroit ; Mrs. Caroline Partridge, 
of Detroit ; and John and William, both resi- 
dents of Portsmouth township. 

Louis Knecht was one year old when his 
parents moved to Ohio, and was six years old 
when they settled permanently in Bay County 
in 1855. Mr. Knecht has been on his present 
farm for the past 33 years. When he took his 
portion of the estate from his father, it was 
totally unimproved and the handsome and 
commodious dwelling and the substantial barns 
and all other excellent improvements have been 
put here by Mr. Knecht himself. They repre- 




HON. SPENCER O. FISHER 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



573 



sent many years of industry and management 
and the result is seen in this being one of the 
most attractive rural homes and valuable farms 
of Portsmouth township. Mr. Knecht has car- 
ried on a general line of farming and has given 
some attention to raising sugar beets, devoting 
about 40 acres to this industry. 

In 1875 ^^^- Knecht was married to Elea- 
nor Conoly, who was born December 20, 1852, 
at Chatham, Ontario, and they ha\-e seven chil- 
dren : Casper W., of Bay City; John J., of 
South Bay City ; William, Jr. ; Louis C. ; Asa 
F. ; Emanuel and Ansel M. 

Politically Mr. Knecht is a stanch Demo- 
crat. He is a leading member of the Hunger 
Presbyterian Church and one of the board of 
five trustees. 




ON. SPENCER O. FISHER. In the 
practical days upon which we have 
fallen, thus early in the 20tli cen- 
tury, the men who make possible the 
rapid de\-elopment of great industries, the pro- 
motion of vast enterprises and the successful 
carrying out of what once would have been 
deemed but the visions of an over-heated brain, 
attract and hold our attention and excite our 
admiration. We feel more than a passing in- 
terest in these men of mental strength and per- 
severing activity, of far-seeing judgment and 
broadened view. A prominent factor in the 
remarkable growth of West Bay City, Michi- 
gan, has been the personal effort of Hon. Spen- 
cer O. Fisher, whose life has been incorporated, 
more or less, with almost everything of a public 
nature here, for the past third of a century. 
His life history is more interesting than that 
of many of his contemporaries in that it shows 
the accomplishment of great undertakings and 
the honorable and successful career of a busi- 

31 



ness man, capitalist, statesman and public bene- 
factor. 

Spencer O. Fisher was born at Cainden, 
Hillsdale County, Michigan, on February 3, 
1843, 3nd is a son of Benjamin and Rosette J. 
(Sutton) Fisher. 

James Fisher, the paternal grandfather, 
was born in New Jersey in 1781, and died July 
II, 1838, aged 57 years. His wife Charity 
was also born in New Jersey, in the same vil- 
lage as her husband, in 1773 and died June 9, 
1838. James Fisher followed the trade of 
shoemaker in his earlier years, but after his 
marriage he removed to Wayne County, New 
York, where he bought a farm. His subse- 
quent life was passed there. 

Robert Blaine Sutton, the maternal grand- 
father, was a native of New York and he re- 
sided for many years at Lyons, Wayne County. 
He was born in 1787 and died at Hillsdale, 
Michigan, March 2, 1876. By trade he was a 
cooper and at Lyons he owned a large cooper 
shop, doing such a great business that it is re- 
corded that he worked 17 and 18 hours a day, 
ate four or five meals and manufactured by 
hand heavy casks for wine. Only a man of 
strong constitution could have followed such 
a life and that he possessed this was shown 
during the War of 18 12, in which he took 
part. He suffered from bayonet wounds in 
the legs and was later shot in the chest. After 
lying neglected on the battle-field for more 
than 24 hours, he was taken off supposedly 
dead, but his strength rallied and he lived 
through many subsequent years of usefulness. 
He was a man of excellent business judgment 
^nd of industrious, frugal life. He early in- 
vested his means in government lands in Mich- 
igan and moved to the State in 1866. In the 
following year he entered into a lumbering 
business with Benjamin Fisher, the father of 
our subject. 



574 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Benjamin Fisher was born March 22, 181 1. 
in Wayne County, New York, and died June 
5, 1882. His attendance at school was cov- 
ered by 12 days, but he had ambition and an 
active mind and he succeeded in educating- him- 
self. At the age of 17 years he left the home 
farm and accompanied Robert Blaine Sutton 
to Michigan and subsequently married his 
daughter. The trip was made by boat from 
Buffalo to Monroe, and the rest of the way by 
following an Indian trail through the woods 
to Camden township, Hillsdale County, on the 
tract where Michigan corners with Indiana and 
Ohio. There he built the log house in which 
our subject was born, the comfortable, pict- 
uresque little cabin to which Mr. Fisher's 
thoughts often return with tender recollections, 
sweetened by memories of venerble grandpar- 
ents, honored and beloved father and mother 
and other kindred. Benjamin Fisher cleared 
about 15 acres of land and set out a beautiful 
grove of locust trees which were nourished by 
the rich soil and grew luxuriously, throwing 
their grateful shade over the happy little pio- 
neer home. When all was prepared, Mr. 
Fisher went back to New York, married and 
brought his bride to the backwoods cabin. He 
later became one of the largest farmers and 
most important men of that locality, taking 
part in public matters and ser\'ing a number of 
years as township supervisor. When the vil- 
lage of Hillsdale was incorporated as a city, 
he was elected the first alderman from the 
Third Ward, and through his whole life he 
continued a wise counselor to his family and 
community. Like other men of success, he 
possessed a strong personality, great courage 
and keen business perceptions. 

Benjamin Fisher was twice married, first 
to Rosette J. Sutton, and second to Adeliza 
Leach. The five children born to the first 
union were: Spencer O., of this record ; James 



K. ; Mary, deceased, formerly wife of C. E. 
Underbill, of Deerfield, Michigan; Benjamin 
B., of Chicago; and Rosette J., wife of George 
W. Thompson, of Grand Rapids, Michigan. 
The mother of this family died in 1856, aged 
36 years. She was possessed of all those quali- 
ties which make the memories of her children 
dear and lasting. Her religious belief made 
her a devoted member of the Methodist Church. 
The one daughter of Mr. Fisher's second mar- 
riage, Sarah Leach Fisher, resides at Hillsdale, 
Michigan. 

Our subject's early childhood was spent in 
the little log house mentioned and then the, 
father moved into the village of Hillsdale for 
a time. Later the father's large lumbering 
operations took him to various parts of the 
State and into Canada, and thus the son's edu- 
cation was pursued in various villages. One 
school and its elderly master, at Port Burwell, 
Canada, Mr. Fisher recalls on account, partly, 
of the very unique manner in which the teacher 
rewarded good scholarship. He had a neck- 
lace made of silver pieces, from a dollar to a 
five-cent piece, and it was the proud privilege 
of the pupil who stood at the head of his class 
to wear this decoration. In recalling these old 
incidents of his school-boy life, Mr. Fisher in- 
sensibly shows the deep feelings which, under 
the calm exterior of a hardened business man, 
might not always be suspected. 

In 1856 his parents returned to Michigan 
and he completed his public-school course at 
the Hillsdale High School and subsequently 
spent parts of two years at Hillsdale College, 
of which his father was one of the founders, 
and parts of two years at Albion College. He 
then entered the employ of his father and 
grandfather Sutton and for alxjut five years 
was engaged in shipping hardwood lumber for 
them. After he had reached his majority, he 
decided to embark in merchandising, and to 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



575 



tliat end entered the employ of Hall & Marvin 
at a salary of $240 a year ; but from the start 
he displayed so much energy and business 
ability that, without demand from him, the 
firm paid him $600. After working for them 
about a year and a half, he entered into part- 
nership with Chauncy W. Ferris under the 
firm name of S. O. Fisher & Company. This 
continued until 1868, during which period Mr. 
Fisher had complete charge of the business. 
He was now 28 years old, at an age when 
many young men of our day are but looking 
about for an entrance into business. This 
alert young merchant was already a good finan- 
cier and had acquired sufficient knowledge of 
business probabilities and possibilities in his 
section to make him feel confident that he 
could carry out a contract he signed that fall, 
for the building of a railroad between Hills- 
dale and Ypsilanti, an extent of 30 miles. This 
road was built according to contract, including 
bridges, fences and all things pertaining to a 
finished railway. Through the unqualified suc- 
cess of this undertaking, Mr. Fisher not only 
secured a large amount of capital, but he also 
proved the quality of his business ability. In 
1 87 1, Mr. Fisher entered into partnership with 
his father under the firm name of B. & S. O. 
Fisher, and came to Wenona (now West Bay 
City). The firm purchased a one-fourth inter- 
est in the timber in Williams township and took 
the contract to cut the timber ofT the entire tract 
of 4,000 acres. At the close of the first year's 
work, the junior member of the firm bought the 
senior's interest and continued to conduct the 
business by himself for several years. .-Xs his 
other interests increased, he found it desirable 
to have a partner, and on July 15, 1877, he 
formed a new partnership with Alfred Mosher 
under the firm name of Mosher & Fisher. Sub- 
sequently, Mr. Fisher disposed of his interest. 
In the meantime he had founded the village 



of Fisherville, which continues to be a lumber- 
ing point. 

In 1889, Mr. Fisher became interested in 
another large enterprise, this being the promo- 
tion and building of the electric street railway 
in West Bay City. He was the main owner of 
this road and when he later acquired a con- 
trolling interest in the horse-car system in Bay 
City, he consolidated the two companies under 
the name of the Bay City & West Bay City 
Street Car Company. Another instance of 
business enterprise was the purchase, with Ben- 
jamin Burbridge, of large tracts of land at 
Sebawaing. The company put down the first 
shafts and mined the first coal in this part of 
the State. Being the pioneer company in the 
field, it had to face conditions which took away 
profits, but it was the means of discovering to 
the residents of this section of the State the fact 
that great veins of coal awaited the capitalists 
who. since then, have mined to the extent of 
immense fortunes. Mr. Fisher's activities have 
continued in almost every developing way. He 
was one of the first to promote, foster and en- 
courage different business enterprises which, 
with his clear foresight, he could see would 
contribute to the general welfare, and one of 
these was the founding of The Lumberman's 
State Bank, of West Bay City. This bank suc- 
ceeded the private bank of H. H. Norrington, 
in which Mr. Fisher was interested. He was 
the first president of the new organization and 
remained its head continuously for 25 years. 
He was also the promoter and organizer and 
also president of the Flome Light Company of 
Wenona, which was later consolidated with the 
company in Bay Citv' and now bears the name 
of the Bay County Electric Light Company. 

During- its first year of existence, Mr. 
Fisher was vice-president of the Michigan 
Sugar Company, but closed out his interest in 
1899 and in one day organized the West Bav 



5/6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



City Sugar Company, of which he became 
president. At present he is president and man- 
ager of the Micliigan Land & Lumber Com- 
pany and of the Morgan Lumber Company, 
owners of stancHng pine timter in the Georgian 
Bay district of Ontario. His pubhc spirit and 
devotion to the interests of West Bay City has 
been shown all through his business career in 
Bay County. During the period when he was 
manager of the street railway company, he 
spent thousands of dollars of his ow-n fortune 
in the development of that l^eautiful and popu- 
lar summer resort. — Wenona Beach, which 
has proved a successful financial enterprise, 
whose advantages to the city in every way can- 
not be over-estimated. 

>\Ir. Fisher's activities have been in no way 
limited to a business career. He has won de- 
served reputation not only in his State but in 
the halls of Congress and has not hesitated to 
raise his voice in the interests of his constitu- 
ents as well as to defend the great principles of 
his party. Politically, he is a Democrat. When 
he moved from Hillsdale to Wenona, he had 
served two years in the former village as alder- 
man and his influence was immediately felt in 
his new home. It was mainly through his 
efforts that a consolidation of the villages of 
Salzburg, Wenona and Banks was effected. 
The leaders from each of the villages sought 
to give the new municipality the name of their 
village, but the "Grand Old Man of Greater 
Bay City," realizing that the two distinct com- 
munities on opposite banks of the Saginaw 
River, were in reality but one city, named the 
new city "West Bay City," and for weeks con- 
tended against the opposing factions until the 
name he had chosen was adopted. That was 
in 1877, and in every session of the Legislature 
from that time he agitated the consolidation of 
the two cities. He was instrumental in having 
passed by the Legislature the first bill to unite 



Bay City, West Bay City and Essexville, the 
same to take effect in 1891. The bill was 
signed by the Governor on June 21, 1887. This 
act provided for the appointment of a commit- 
tee of three from each city to fix the equaliza- 
tion of debts and taxes and to adjust other 
matters of importance to the united cities. In 
case of disagreement, Hon. Spencer O. Fisher 
was named as arbiter, with power to decide 
any controversy. The opposition, however, 
managed to manipulate a special election which 
gave an adverse vote on the matter of consoli- 
dation, and so the subject was dropped for a 
time. When the new movement for consolida- 
tion was started in 1903, Mr. Fisher again led 
the consolidationists. He was looking after 
his lumber interests in the Georgian Bay region 
in January, 1905. when the bill to repeal the 
consolidation act was railroaded through the 
Legislature. When he learned that the realiza- 
tion of one of his fondest hopes was in danger 
of being set back for another twenty years, he 
hurried back home, rallied enough prominent 
business men to make sure that consolidation 
still had many loyal supporters, and called for 
an open meeting in the parlors of the Fraser 
House. The "antis" pretended to laugh at INIr. 
Fisher's efforts; Ixit when on a few hours 
notice hundreds of representative business men 
and leading citizens went on record as still 
favoring the 1903 agreement, they found that 
all the movement required was a powerful and 
earnest leader. Governor Fred INI. Warner 
was wired to hold up the repeal act, which he 
did, although not of Mr. Fisher's political faith. 
Mr. Fisher was- spokesman for a committee 
that went to Lansing to arrange for a public 
hearing before the Governor. Public meetings 
were held in the two cities, and such a senti- 
ment was created, as indicated by the stream of 
letters and telegrams with which the Governor 
was deluged, that tlie Governor vetoed the 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



577 



repeal act. During all those days and hours 
when so much trembled in the balance, Mr. 
Fisher was the soul of the consolidation move- 
ment. He gave the energy and vitality to the 
movement that carried it to victory when all 
seemed lost ; and in the celebrations which fol- 
lowed, the lion's share of the credit was ac- 
corded to the "Father of Greater Bay City." 

In 1887, Mr. Fisher was a candidate for 
the honor of being the first mayor of West Baj' 
City. He was defeated by only two votes. He 
was subsequently elected alderman of the Third 
Ward and served se\-eral terms to the benefit 
of the city. Later he was elected mayor and 
during his administration of the office, during 
three terms, the city increased in prosperity 
along every line. In 1884 he was sent as a 
district delegate to the National Democratic 
Convention at Chicago, and in the same year 
he was elected by his district as a member of 
the 49th Congress, and was returned to the 
SOth Congress by a majority of 2,000 votes. 
At Washington he became closely identified 
with measures which provided for the general 
welfare and, with characteristic energy, worked 
for the improving of his own district. His suc- 
cess is seen in the establishment of the United 
States District and Circuit courts and in the 
large appropriations for the Government Build- 
ing at Bay City. In affairs of general interest 
he was not silent, and he gave assistance in 
bringing about the forfeiture to the govern- 
ment of unearned land grants in favor of home- 
stead settlers : in obtaining needed appropria- 
tions for the improvement of rivers and har- 
bors and in the establishment and maintenance 
of lighthouses. 

In 1894 Mr. Fisher was the Democratic 
candidate for Governor of Michigan, and al- 
though his defeat in a Republican stronghold 
was a foregone conclusion, the large vote he 
received was a flattering testimonial of the 



high esteem in which he is held throughout the 
State. 

For 21 years Mr. Fisher served as a mem- 
ber of the School Board of West Bay City. Ht 
was appointed president of the Sage Library 
Board by its founder, Henry W. Sage, and has 
served in that capacity and as trustee since the 
library was established. For many years he 
has been a trustee of the Westminster Presby- 
terian Church and gave freely and liberally to 
the erection of the new church edifice. His 
charities have always been large and he has 
been a benefactor on many occasions when the 
fact never became public. 

On June 26, 1867, Mr. Fisher was married 
to Katherine H. Crane, who is a daughter of 
D. P. Crane, of Hillsdale, Michigan, and they 
have three daughters, viz. : Grace, wife of 
Floyd A. Goodwin, of Bay City; Nellie Jose- 
phine, wife of Edwin M. Eddy, of San Fran- 
cisco; and Kate, who lives at home. A portrait 
of Mr. Fisher accompanies this sketch. 




F.V. R. G. VAN ROOY, pastor of St. 
John's Catholic Church at Essexville, 
Bay County, was born October 18, 
1867, in the Province of North Bra- 
bant, the Netherlands, and is a son of Henry 
and Petronella Van Rooy. 

The parents of Father \'an Rooy still re- 
side in the Netherlands. The father carried on 
a business as merchant and dealer in iron and 
iron castings, from which he has now retired, 
being succeeded by his four sons, who continue 
to be interested in that line. The family con- 
sisted of five sons and one daughter, and of 
these Father Van Rooy was the only one to 
come to America. 

Until he was 26 years of age. Father \'an 
Rooy remained in his own land, attending the 
parochial schools until 12 years of age and en- 



S78 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



joying collegiate advantages in North Bra- 
bant until 1 8 years of age, when he entered a 
Belgian convent college. Upon his return to 
the Netherlands, he completed his theological 
studies at the convent at Heeswijk, following 
which he was sent to America by his church su- 
periors. He arrived in the city of New York 
on August 4, 1894, and proceeded at once to 
Wisconsin to take up work in the Diocese of 
Green Bay, being settled at Dyckesville. There 
the young priest had a congregation of 180 
families and during his 10 vears' season of work 
Ijuilt a new church and parish house and be- 
c^.me known in all that section for his religious 
zeal and executive ability. 

Father \'an Roov came to Essexville on 
April I, 1904, taking charge of a parish of 
360 families, made up of many nationalities, 
including 200 French, 160 Hollanders and Bel- 
gians, with a considerable sprinkling of Irish 
and German. This large parish provides the 
faithful priest with many duties. The parochial 
school, which has an average attendance of 
about 270 children, is under the care of the 
Dominican Sisters. He is now engaged in 
building a new residence for the Sisters on the 
site of the academy, which was burned just be- 
fore Father Van Rooy took charge. The first 
church was what was erected for a school house 
by Father Thomas Rafter, of Bay City, in 
1884. The first resident pastor here was Father 
Roche, who came in 1887 and built the present 
parish house in 1888 and the present church in 
1892. Father Roche died here in 1900 and 
Father Kenny supplied until Father Bresson 
came to take charge. He fell ill and was suc- 
ceeded by Father Van Rooy. who has made 
many friends, both within and without his con- 
gregation, and has impressed all who have 
come within the sphere of his influence, as a 
man of superior intelligence, great learning and 
excellent Christian charncter. 




ON. \V O R T H Y L O V E L L 
CHURCHILL, one of the strong 
men who has stood at the head of 
financial aft'airs and great business in- 
terests in Northern and Eastern Michigan for 
many years, still dominates the policies of many 
of the prospering commercial enterprises of va- 
rious parts of the country. As president and 
treasurer of the Bay City-AIicbigan Sugar 
Company ; as president and general manager of 
the Tawas Sugar Company ; president of the 
Onoway Limestone Company and as a director 
of the Stearns & Culver Lumber Company, of 
Bagdad, Florida, he demonstrates the same un- 
bounded business capacity of younger years and 
a thorough comprehension of all questions of 
vital interest to these great concerns. Mr. 
Churchill was born at Batavia, Illinois. Decem- 
ber 14. 1840, and is a son of Joseph \\'. and 
Delia S. (Wilson) Churchill. 

Along with personal traits and physical re- 
semblance, our subject also inherited the name 
of his grandfather. Gen. Worthy Lovell 
Churchill, who was named in honor of the 
heroic General Lovell, of Revolutionary War 
fame. At the time of the birth of General 
Churchill, in A'ermont. the daring exploits of 
this young soldier of that State were being cel- 
ebrated in story and song as those of the 
Worthy Lovell. 

In 1802, after his marriage with a member 
of the old family of \Mielpley. the grandf:ither 
removed from Vermont and settled in the Hol- 
land Purchase in New York State, where the 
city of Batavia now stands. He took a prom- 
inent part in the War of 181 2, a comrade of 
General Warren, and both he and Warren gal- 
lantly led their commands at the battle of Black 
Rock, where the brave Warren was killed. Gen- 
eral Churchill's life closed at his home at Ba- 
tavia, New York. 

The matern?! grandfather of IN.Ir. Churchill 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



579 



was a distinguished jurist. Judge Isaac G. Wil- 
son, who was a son of Judge Isaac Wilson. The 
judicial toga has fallen upon the son of the 
second Judge Wilson, who occupies a seat on a 
judicial bench in Colorado. The mother of 
Mr. Churchill was born at Batavia, New York, 
in June, 1808, and died September 17, 1898. 
Joseph W. Churchill, father of the subject 
of this record, was born in 1800, at Hubbard- 
ton, Vermont, and was two years old when his 
parents removed to Western New York. There 
he grew to manhood, perfected himself in the 
law under the direction of Judge Moses Tag- 
gart, and, in 1835, decided to cast in his lot 
with that army of immigrants flocking from 
North, East and South, into the rich lands of 
Illinois. Such men as Joseph W. Churchill, 
coming with an abundance of means, social 
prestige and acknowledged superiority of in- 
tellect, were w'elcomed. He settled in a hamlet 
to which he gave the name of his formed place 
of residence, Batavia, now a beautiful little city 
which is noted for the elegance of its homes, 
many of them owned by Chicago magnates. 
Mr. Churchill made rapid progress in the law, 
and with others of the same profession, Morris, 
Wentworth, Douglas and Lincoln, traveled the 
circuit, weighed down with their saddle bags of 
legal documents. He was intimately associated 
with Douglas and Lincoln both in professional 
work and political campaigns. Soon after com- 
ing to Illinois, Judge Churchill was elected to 
the State Legislature and was prominently 
identified with the making of the laws that sub- 
sequently resulted in developing the State in the 
way of opening up means of transportation, 
both by rail and water. Judge Churchill was 
still a resident of Illinois when the trouble arose 
concerning the settlement of the Mormons 
there, but before political discord reached its 
height between the northern and the southern 
portions of the State, he removed, in 1853, to 



Davenport, Iowa. There he confined his at- 
tention for the remainder of his active life to 
the practice of his profession. His death took 
place in 1884. His three children were: 
Georgia, who died at Davenport, January 8, 
1892; Worthy Lovell, of this sketch; and Ho- 
bart D., who died March 11, 1904. The last 
named was a very astute business man. He 
was closely associated with our subject in vari- 
ous important enterprises for a long period. 
Judge Churchill and wife were de\'oted mem- 
bers of the Protestant Episcopal Church, strict 
in their observance of its usages. From youth 
he was a Free Mason, like the majority of the 
prominent intellectual men of his day. 

In taking up the personal history of our 
subject, we meet with many interesting inci- 
dents. He was reared at Davenport, Iowa, 
where he attended first the local schools and 
then entered Griswold College until his parents 
placed him in a noted Episcopal school, con- 
ducted by Dr. Reid at Geneva, New York. 
After two years of careful training there, he 
entered the office of a civil engineer and con- 
tinued his studies for several years. In 1858 
the discovery of gold on the Platte River in 
Colorado created great excitement throughout 
the country. Many a prairie schooner, in- 
scribed with the words "Pike's Peak or Bust," 
crossed the Western plains for the El Dorado 
of the gold seekers. Only those who lived 
through those exciting days can realize the hold 
the stories of fortunes made in a few days se- 
cured on the imaginations of young and ambi- 
tious men, especially those, who, like Mr. 
Churchill, had been directing their studies in 
the line of engineering. With little difficulty 
he and others organized the Cherry Creek Mill 
Company, of which he was made secretary, and 
the prirtv set out for Cherry Creek, which was 
the origiml name of Denver, well equipped, as 
thev imagined, with a portable sawmill. They 



s8o 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



had only reached Grand Island, Nebraska, 
when all the members of the pioneering party 
became disconraged at the difficulties of the 
enterprise and turned back, except Mr. 
Churchill, who w as made of sterner stuff. Prob- 
ably by this time his hopes of success were not 
so high, but. instead of turning backward, he 
joined forces with a man who owned an ox- 
team, and they were joined by still another ox- 
team and the party resumed the journey. 

This true story continues through Mr. 
Churchill again being left alone on his way, 
climbing the lonely trail on the back of a mule, 
determined to reach the point for which he 
started. Human endurance, however, has a 
limit and he came to the day when he could 
progress no further. He then made his way to 
the old California trail to Salt Lake City, and 
reached California in i860. Conditions were 
not such as he had expected and he soon left 
California and went to the South, but before he 
had entered intn business there the Civil War 
broke out and he returned to Davenport. The 
growing importance of Chicago as a business 
center led him to go there, where he accepted 
a position in a mercantile house which he held 
during the Civil War. The Chicago fire, in 
1 87 1, opened up a great business in lumber 
and its possibilities were early recognized by 
Mr. Churchill. From a local lumber business 
he became interested, about 1874, with the 
lumber mills at Alpena. Michigan, to which 
point he removed, with the expectation of re- 
maining six months. His residence extended 
to 28 years, his removal to Bay City being in 
1902. His brother's failing health caused the 
dissolution in 1903 of the firm of W. L. & 
H. B. Churchill, a firm which had done much 
to develop the lumber business in Northern 
Michigan. They had purchased extensive tracts 
of timber land and towed logs from Canada to 
Michigan, where they were manufactured into 



rough lumber. This was sold in cargo lots 
and shipped all over the world. It is estimated 
that the cutting of this company was from 
25.000.000 to 40,000,000 feet annually. 

In 1898 Mr. Churchill, in connection with 
other leading capitalists here, organized the 
Bay City Sugar Company, which at a later date 
was united with the Michigan Sugar Company. 
The former company built a factory and had it 
in operation in 1899. ^^'- Churchill's interest 
has continued in the sugar industry and he is 
the president and treasurer of the Bay City 
Michig'an Sugar Company, president and gen- 
eral manager of the Tawas Sugar Company 
and has interests in numerous other factories. 
His other enterprises have been indicated. The 
Stearns & Culver Lumber Company, of which 
he is a director, cuts long-leaf yellow pine lum- 
ber in the South, and also manufactures tur- 
pentine. He was one of the organizers of this 
company as he also was of the Onoway Lime- 
stone Company, of which he is also the presi- 
dent. 

Mr. Churchill was married, during his res- 
idence in Chicago, to Amelia Montgomery, who 
is a daughter of Joseph A. Montgomery of that 
city. Of their three children but one survives, 
a daughter, Florence. The family belong to 
the Protestant Episcopal Church and Mr. 
Churchill has been a vestryman for many years. 

Mr. Churchill became prominent in politics 
at Alpena, where lie was twice elected mayor. 
In 1875 he was sent to represent the district in 
the State Legislature. In 1894 he was unani- 
mously chosen by the Democratic party of the 
loth Congressional District as a candidate for 
Congress, but was defeated, that being the year 
of the great Republican victories all over the 
country. Hon. John Donovan was the only 
Democrat elected that year to the Legislature, 
being tlie only one of the party's candidates 
successful on State or national ticket. 




MK. AND MRS. HENRY KRANEK AND FAMILY 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



583 



Mr. Churchill has withdrawn from many 
of his business enterprises and devotes more 
time, than he formerly permitted himself, to the 
leisurely enjoyment of the good things of life. 
He takes much interest in the raising and driv- 
ing of good horses and owns many valuable ani- 
mals. His fraternal connections include the 
Knights of Pythias and the Elks. Personally, 
Mr. Churchill is a man very pleasant to meet 
either in a social or business way. His manner 
is cordial, his attitude engaging and his cour- 
tesy of the kind that wins friendship and ad- 
miration. 




ENRY KRANER, deceased, was one 
of the pioneer settlers in Bay County, 
Michigan, and at the time of his 
death owned 200 acres of fine land 
in Monitor township. He was born in Prus- 
sia, Germany, July i, 1827. and died on his 
own farm in Bay County, June i, 1904. 

Mr. Kraner came to America when he was 
a young, unmarried man, landing in Washte- 
naw County, Michigan, in 1847. He secured 
farm w-ork there and continued to work on 
various farms by the month for three 
years and then worked one year in 
Bay County. After his marriage, he re- 
turned to Washtenaw County, where he 
bought a farm of 80 acres, which he operated 
for seven years. Securing mill w'ork in Bay 
City, he sold his farm and worked in a sawmill 
for three years, and then bought another farm 
and again engaged in agricultural pursuits. 
His first purchase was one of 80 acres and he 
continued to buy other tracts until he owned 
200 acres. It was all heavily timbered. When 
Mr. Kraner started to build his home, he had 
to make a clearing so as to obtain an open site. 
With the assistance of his sons he cleared off 



this large body of land and put it under culti- 
vation. He was an intelligent, honest, industri- 
ous man, one who did his duty to his family and 
his community. He was a strong Democrat 
and was elected to school and township offices. 
He was one of the organizers and liberal con- 
tributors to the first German Lutheran Church 
established at West Bay City. 

Henry Kraner, was married May 2, 1852, 
to Fredericka Mackenson, who was born in 
Brunswick, Germany, May 26, 1829, and came 
to Bay City, in 1850, with her parents, Zacha- 
rias and Fredericka (Schroeder) Mackenson. 
Six children were born to this union, the four 
survivors being : Anna ; Frederick ; August ; 
and Caroline, who is the widow of George 
Nickels, and who has one son, — George. The 
mother of this family is still living. Mr.' and 
Mrs. Kraner celebrated their 50th wedding 
anniversary on May 2, 1902, at which time 
Mr. Kraner enjoyed the testimonials of esteem 
shown him by his family and friends. 

August Kraner, who has succeeded his 
father both in the management of the home 
farm and in the respect of the community, 
owns 125 acres of land, 80 of which are situ- 
ated in sections 24, Monitor township, where 
he resides. Since his father's death, he has 
completed many improvements, including the 
relniilding of the dwelling house and the erec- 
tion of a substantial barn. He carries on gen- 
eral farming and is extensively engaged in the 
raising of good stock. 

August Kraner was married April 26, 1892, 
to Christine Rheinhardt, w-as bom in Monitor 
township, in 1872. and died February 16, 1893, 
leaving a little son, — Henry, — motherless. 

In politics Mr. Kraner is one of the town- 
ship's leading Republicans. He has held a 
number of school offices and was school treas- 
urer for a considerable time. He is one of the 



584 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



trustees and treasurer of the German Lutheran 
Church at West Bay City. 

On a foregoing page, in connection with 
this sketch, is shown a group picture of Mr. 
and Mrs. Henry Kraner, their sons and daugh- 
ters and their two grandsons. 




ILLOX PROSSER CLARK, senior 
member of the firm of Clark & ]\Iun- 
ger, one of the leading firms of ar- 
chitects at Bay City, Michigan, was 
born in Medina township, Medina County, 
Ohio, October 20, 1850. and is a son of James 
and Annie M. (Wright) Clark. 

James Clark was born in 1823 in Argyle 
County, New York, and died in Ohio in the 
spring of 1877. In boyhood he learned the 
mason's trade and worked at the same after he 
had removed to Ohio. He became a mason 
contractor, which business he conducted suc- 
cessfully to the end of his life. He married 
Annie M. Wright, who was a daughter of Or- 
ris and Elizabeth (Reece) Wright. Mr. 
Wright was born in New York but moved at 
an early day to Ohio and owned and operated 
an old-fashioned water-power grist-mill at 
Johnson's Corners. The mother of our subject 
died in 1893, aged 66 years. The four children 
of Mr. and Mrs. Clark were : Dillon P.. of this 
sketch : Delia, wife of Albert Herkner, of Me- 
dina. Ohio: Clarence O.. of ISIedina. Ohio: and 
Eugene E., of Cleveland, Ohio. The parents 
were consistent members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, in which the father served 
many vears as a member of the of^cial board. 

After completing the common-school course 
in his native locality. Dillon P. Clark learned 
the mason's trade with his father and worked 
with the latter for four years. In 1870 he en- 
tered into business for himself as a contractor 



at Aledina, and followed contracting there for 
10 years, a part of this period being in part- 
nership with Wallace Munger, father of his 
present business partner. During all these years 
]\Ir. Clark had devoted more or less attention 
to the study of architecture, at first as a recrea- 
tion but later with the idea of giving the pro- 
fession his entire time, it being one congenial 
in every way. His former occupation had laid 
the foundation, for the laws that govern build- 
ing and construction are applied by every prac- 
tical mechanic and must be thoroughly under- 
stood. Mr. Clark was not able, however, to 
avail himself of the advantages given in a school 
of architecture ; his knowledge has been entirely 
gained through study and observation, assisted 
by a natural artistic ability. 

In 1880 Mr. Clark began to follow archi- 
tecture as a profession and on November i, 
1882, he came to \\"est Bay City and opened 
office, four years later removing to Bay City. 
While his work covers all kinds of construc- 
tion, Mr. Clark makes a specialty of churches 
and public buildings. He superintended the 
construction of the Federal Building in Bay 
City, one of the finest buildings in the State: 
was one of the architects of the Phoenix Block : 
designed the Methodist Episcopal and Christian 
churches and many fine residences at Medina, 
Ohio ; the Ridotto and many other fine build- 
ings of both public and private character in Bay 
City and West Bay City ; the :Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, Greenville. ]\Iichigan : :\Iethodist 
Episcopal churches at Owosso. Sault Ste. 
Marie and Calumet. Michigan; four churches 
and numerous other buildings at Flint, the First 
Baptist Church at Alpena, ilichigan, etc., etc. 
In collaboration with his present partner, the 
new Bay City Club house, the Genesee County 
Court House, sherifif's residence and jail, the 
new Carnegie Library and four splendid school 
buildings at Flint, Michigan, have been de- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



:}°D 



signed, as well as a large number of churches, 
school buildings, business blocks and fine resi- 
dences at various points throughout the State. 

W'lien the Phoenix Block was completed, 
Mr. Clark took an office there, where he contin- 
ued until February, 1898, when the firm moved 
into its present fine suite of offices in the Shearer 
Block, which are convenient and modern in 
every particular. On September i, 1897, the 
firm of Clark & Munger was formed, Averton 
Edmund Munger, whose sketch appears on an- 
other page of this work, becoming the junior 
member. 

Mr. Clark married Alice Hickox, who is a 
daughter of Roman F. Hickox, of Lodi, Ohio. 
They had one daughter, Matie B., a beautiful, 
accomplished girl, whose death on May 10, 
1897, was a crushing affliction. Mr. Clark is 
a member of the ]\Iethodist Episcopal Church 
in West Bay City, of w-hich he is at the present 
time a trustee. Politically a Republican, he 
takes no very active part in campaign work. He 
is a member of W'enona Lodge. F. & A. M., of 
West Bav Citv. 




[)GAR J. REILLEY, who follows the 
business of lumber inspector and log 
scaler, and as such is widely known 
through the Michigan lumber regions, 
has well-appointed offices located at the corner 
of Center avenue and North Water street, 
Bay City. Mr. Reilley was born in Edinburg, 
Ohio, March 24, 1851, and is a son of John 
Scott and Cornelia Bissell (Webb) Reilley. 

The Reilley family came originally from the 
North of Ireland. The paternal grandfather 
of our subject was John Reilley. who married 
Margaret Scott, of Franklin County. Penn- 
sylvania. 

John Scott Reilley was born in Green V'il- 



lage, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, July 28, 
1818. His father, John Reilley, was a mer- 
chant and justice of the peace and in later years 
engaged in school teaching. His uncle, James 
Reilley, was killed in the battle at the river 
Raisin. John S. Reilley learned the tailoring 
trade at Steubenville, Ohio, but the greater ])'irt 
of his young manhood was spent in West \'ir- 
ginia. He traveled over the country as a jour- 
neyman tailor, working at various points until 
the introduction of factory-made clothes made 
it no longer profitable. He then opened a hotel 
at Edinburg, Ohio, but later removed to Ra- 
venna, Ohio. About 1853 '^^ removed to Vas- 
sar, Tuscola County, Michigan, where he be- 
came interested in lumbering. Eight years 
later he came to Bav Citv, where he subse- 
quently opened a grocery store. After operat- 
ing it about two years he retired from business 
and died 15 years later, August 5, 1904. While 
a resident of Ohio, he was a member of the Odd 
Fellows but did not continue his relations with 
the organization after coming to this State. 
Politically a Democrat, he was elected by his 
party to numerous local offices and served as a 
member of the Bay County Board of Super- 
visors from the Fifth Ward for some time. 

On Decemljer 31. 1846, at Freedom, Por- 
tage County, Ohio, John S. Reilley was mar- 
ried to Cornelia Bissell Webb, who is a daugh- 
ter of Dr. James Webb, of Holly, Orleans 
County, New York. Mrs. Reilley was born 
February 7, 1829, and is of Scotch and Eng- 
lish ancestry. Her mother was born in East 
Hartford, Connecticut, and w^as a niece of 
Major General Bissell, an officer in the Revo- 
lutionary War. Mrs. Reilley's brother, ]\Iervin 
Webb, was a member of an Ohio heavy artillery 
regiment during the Civil War and died at 
Natchez. Mississippi. The four children of 
Mr. and Mrs. John S. Reilley were: Florence, 
deceased, who was the wife of .Mbert Miller, 



586 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



of Spokane. \\'ashington ; Carrie Gertrude, 
Crawford Scott and Edgar }., of this sketch. 

Carrie Gertrude Reiiley is one of the well- 
known educators of Bay County. After com- 
pleting her education in the Bay City schools, 
she taught at St. Helen's, near Hemlock, in 
Saginaw County, then at Kawkawlin and finally 
in the Bay City Training School. She then 
began a professional career of 13 years' dura- 
tion in Bay City, teaching first in the Wood- 
side School, then in the Fifth Ward, then spent 
four years in the Sixth Ward and completed 
her work as teacher in 1897 in the Farragut 
School. She is a very intelligent lady and is 
particularly gifted in the art of teaching. 

Crawford Scott Reiiley was born in Bay 
City, August 14, 1867. After finishing his 
work in the grammar schools, he attended the 
Bay City High School for a period and then 
began the study of the law with John L. Stod- 
dard, and continued with T. A. E. and J- C. 
Weadock. Subsequently he was graduated 
from the law school of the University of Mich- 
igan in 1889 and then entered the office of his 
former preceptors for a time. Later he located 
in Sheboygan, Michigan, where he has gained 
great prominence in his profession. In addi- 
tion to having a large private practice, he has 
been city attorney for a number of years, 
county prosecuting attorney and circuit court 
commissioner. Fraternally he is an Elk. 

Edward J. Reiiley, the subject of this 
sketch, was educated in the public schools of 
Vassar and Bay City, and began his business 
life as a messenger boy. One year later he went 
to tally lumber for the W. C. Yawkey Company 
and was with that firm three years, going then 
to Tawas as lumber inspector for three years 
more. During this period he had charge of the 
Western Union telegraph ofiice for one year, 
having learned to receive and transmit mes- 
sages over the wire several years before, when 



he was a messenger boy in Bay City. 
In 1 87 1 he went to work for E. Y. 
Williams and continued with him about 
20 summers, working through the win- 
ters in the woods as a log scaler for other 
parties. In i8qi he went to the Lake Superior 
country as an inspector and after a two years' 
absence came back to Bay City, where his serv- 
ices are offered to lumber men as a skilled in- 
spector and log scaler. The business is one for 
which every man is not qualified, and no one is 
competent without years of experience. 

Politically, Mr. Reiiley is a Democrat. 
Fraternally he is a Mason, belonging to Bay 
City Lodge, No. 129; Blanchard Chapter, No. 
59, R. A. M. ; and Bay City Commandery, No. 
26, K. T. The whole family attend the Pres- 
bvterian Church. 




ONORE LEMIEUX is a well-known 
farmer and blacksmith of Bay 
County, whose farm and shop are 
located in section 4, Kawkawlin 
township, and whose postoffice address is 
Linwood. 

Mr. Lemieux was born at Montreal, Prov- 
ince of Quebec. Canada, in 1865, and is a son 
of Peter and Philomen Lemieux. The father is 
living on the farm with his son, the mother 
having passed away several years ago. They 
had nine children, as follows: Peter, who 
resides at Essexville, Bay County ; Au.gust and 
Wilbrod, who live in Minnesota : Honore ; 
Evangeline, who is the wife of Homer Pen- 
guin: Wilfred, who owns the 40 acres adjoin- 
ing the property of his brother, Honore; 
Eladie, deceased : Zinnophile, whose home is in 
section 5. Kawkawlin township: and Elizabeth, 
married Austin Brancham, nf Beaver township. 

Tlie subject of this sketch came from Can- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



587 



ada to Michigan in 1891. He spent a year in 
Bay City, and in 1893 located on his present 
farm, which consists of 40 acres of desirable 
land, and is kept in excellent condition. 

On October 7, 1902, Mr. Lemieux was 
married to Elizabeth Mennier, a daughter of 
Solomon and ilargarct (Grelenx) Mennier. 
Solomon IMennier came from Canada about 
1872. Mr. and Mrs. Lemieux have had two 
children, — Lillian, who died in infancy; and 
Felix, who was born November 18, 1904. The 
subject of this sketch is an industrious, upright 
and worthy man, and is favorably regarded by 
all with whom he is brought into contact. In 
politics Mr. Lemieux acts with the Democratic 
party. Religiously, he is a member of the 
Catholic Church. 




lOHN :M. NUFFER, a leading citizen of 
Williams township, who is the owner 
and operator of a large cheese factory 
and also the proprietor of a general 
store at Aul^urn, was born February 16, 1870, 
in Frankenlust township, Bay County, and is a 
son of William and Mary (Kranzlein) Nuffer. 
The ancestry of Mr. Nuffer on both 
sides is of German extraction, both pa- 
ternal and maternal grandparents having 
been born and married in Germanv. Thev 



came to Michigan at 



a verv early 



(lav 



and settled in Frankenlust township. Bay 
County, right in the wilderness, far removed 
from civilization. They were obliged to cut 
their own paths through the forests and tam- 
arack swamps in order to reach the land they 
had purchased. Both Mr. Nuffer and Mr. 
Kranzlein became very prominent citizens in 
the settlement and development of this section, 
but they were not able to give their children 
many school advantages, our subject's father 



being almost a man before he enjoyed any op- 
portunities. He was very young when the 
family came to Bay County, and the mother 
was five years old. 

William Nuffer and Mary Kranzlein were 
married in 1864 and they had six children, 
viz. : Margaret, wife of Michael Uhlrich, of 
Saginaw: Darliara, deceased, who was the wife 
of Adolph Wirth ; William, who died in 1900 
and was buried in Frankenlust township ; John 
M. of this sketch ; and George A. and Henry 
of Amelich, Bay County. Mr. Nuffer died at 
the age of 38 years and his widow married 
again. She had eight children by the second 
marriage and died at the age of 58 years. 

Our subject was educated in the schools of 
Frankenlust township and worked on the home 
farm until he was 21 years of age and then 
spent a season in the woods engaged in lum- 
bering. He then learned cheese-making with 
William ^^'a]ker, a veteran cheese-maker of 
Frankentrost township, Saginaw County, with 
whom he worked four months and then fol- 
lowed the Inisiness with ^Michael Bickle for 
two months. j\Ir. Nuffer then embarked in the 
business for himself, starting a factor}' in 
Monitor township where he continued three 
years and then bought a factory at Amelith, 
where he continued his business for four years. 
In igoi he started his large factory at Auburn, 
where he has a capacity for the making of 8,000 
pounds daily. His milk is secured within a 
radius of four miles and he ships his finished 
product to Bay City, Saginaw, .\drian and 
Detroit. 

Mr. Nuffer is a man of enterprise and of 
progressive ideas, and he has just completed 
and occupied a fine store building, run in con- 
nection with his factory. This building is con- 
structed in a modern way and its steel ceiling 
is not only an object of beauty, but is also de- 
signed for safety. Mr. Nuffer carried a large 



588 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



stock of well-selected goods, including shoes, 
clothing, dry goods, groceries, hardware, con- 
fectionery, etc. 

^Ir. Nufifer was married June 28, 1898. at 
Monitor, to Katie Weber, who was a daughter 
of Fred and Eliza (Phillips) Weber. Mrs. 
Nufifer died on January 5, 1905, aged 28 
years and 17 days, leaving a family of five chil- 
dren (the youngest a newly born babe), viz.: 
William, Elma. John. Otto and Katie Mary. 
In her death Mr. Nuffer has met with a terrible 
bereavement. She was a most estimable lady. 
a willing and valued helpmate and a devoted 
wife and mother. 

Politically Mr. Nuffer is a Democrat. He 
is a member of the German Lutheran Church. 




ON. JONATHAN SMITH BAR- 
CLAY, who is well remembered by 
the older citizens of Bay County, 
was for many years one of the most 
enterprising and progressive business men of 
Bay City. He was identified with various 
enterprises and established the well-known 
hotel known as the old Wolverton House, but 
for a period of 25 years prior to his death he 
lived a retired life. He was a son of Richard 
and Hannah (Smith) Barclay, and grandson 
of John Barclay, who founded the Bank of 
Northumberland at Philadelphia. The family 
is of Scotch origin and is descended from the 
first colonial Governor of New Jersey, Robert 
Barclay. Hannah Smith, the wife of Richard 
Barclay, was a daughter of Col. George and 
Effie (Drake) Smith, which family also traces 
its ancestry to early colonial days. 

Jonathan S. Barclay was born in Northum- 
berland County. Pennsylvania. August 8, 1807, 
r.:-id at the age of 16 years learned the trade of 
a millwrio-ht and miller. He conducted a grist- 



mill when a mere bov and moved to Tamaqua, 
Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, to assist in 
the construction of a branch railroad. He then 
vvent to Pottsville, where he followed his trade 
for a time, after which he went to Lycoming 
county to build a furnace. About this time he 
gained the displeasure of his father by voting 
for Andrew Jackson, Democratic candidate for 
President, and was disinherited. Senator 
Thomas E. Bayard, United States Senator 
from Delaware, was familiar with these facts, 
rnd gave what assistance he could to the young 
man. He took him to his home, gave him em- 
ployment and the use of a large law library. 
Mr. Barclay took advantage of his opportunities 
by spending all his spare time in the i)ursuit 
of legal studies. After leaving the Senator's 
home, he started to- Rochester, New York, 
where he was located for two years, during that 
time helping to build some of the largest flour- 
ing mills of that section. At that time the war 
between Texas and Mexico was raging, and 
with a party of young men he started south to 
enlist in the Texas army, but on reaching Cleve- 
land, Ohio, was met with the intelligence that 
Santa Anna had surrendered to the Texans. 
The "Toledo War," the fiasco relating to the 
boundary between Ohio and Michigan, was 
about to begin, so instead of going to Texas, 
Mr. Barclay, with 16 others took a boat for 
Monroe, Michigan. When they landed, Gover- 
nor Stevens T. Mason was reviewing his troops. 
After the review, the party volunteered their 
services, which were declined on account of 
scarcity of food and arms. Our subject then 
started for Detroit, where he remained a few 
days, then \\'ent on foot to Jackson, and from 
there to Albion, searching for employment 
without avail. Finally at Tekonsha he con- 
tracted to jjuild a sawmill and a hotel ; three 
years later he returned to Alliion. where he 
built the Jesse Crowell flouring mill, the first in 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



589 



operation at that point. He then had charge 
of the plant for five years, and while there 
ser\ed as justice of the peace a number of 
years, his early legal training while in the 
liome of Senator Bayard standing him in good 
stead. When the Michigan Central Railroad 
Company had under consideration the advisa- 
bility of running its line through Albion, Mr. 
Barclay, being well known among the farmers 
for miles around, worked hard for the right of 
way. Afterward he was appointed agent at 
Albion, a position he filled with credit four or 
five years. When the Michigan Central Rail- 
road ofifices were moved to Detroit, he also 
moved and conducted the Michigan Central 
Railroad eating house, where the Hotel Wayne 
is now situated. Subsequently he purchased a 
stock of goods and estabhshed a general mer- 
chandise store at Lower Saginaw, now Bay 
City, arriving December 20, 1849. This was 
the second store in Bay City and most of its 
early trade was among the Indians, with 
whom he was well acquainted. He did 
an extensive business with them and later 
re-embarked in the general mercantile busi- 
ness at Bay City. He finally disposed 
of his store and stock to the firm of 
Park & Munger and commenced building the 
old Wolverton House at the corner of Third 
and Water streets, which he thereafter con- 
ducted about 15 years, in the meantime engag- 
ing extensively in the fishing business on 
Saginaw Bay. He was elected sheriff of Bay 
County in 1856 and again in 1861, and proved 
an efficient officer. After leaving the hotel he 
devoted his time to liis vineyard and peacli 
orchard on the l)ay shore until he met with re- 
verses. At one time he also conducted a stage 
h'ne and carried the mail between Lower Sagi- 
naw and Saginaw, and Lower Saginaw anrl 
Alpena. He was a Democrat in politics and 



was one of the early members of the State Leg- 
islature. The last 25 years of his life were 
spent in happy retirement in the companionship 
of his family, his death occurring in August, 
1887, in the 80th year of his age. 

While serving as station agent at Albion, 
Mr. Barclay was united in marriage with Sarah 
Ann Sweeney, a handsome and intelligent 
woman. She survived her husband many 
years, dying in October, 1904, aged 90 years. 
She remained well and strong to the last, pos- 
sessing fully her mental factulties and her 
memory of the early events of her life when the 
State was young and in its early development. 
She was a woman of the best type, in character 
and intellectuality, and was an ardent church 
worker, having been one of the founders of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in Bay County. 
Three children were torn to ^Ir. and Mrs. 
Barclay, namely : Frederick, who fought for 
three years under Admiral David Farragut in 
the United States Navy, and was a member of 
the Farragut Veterans' Association of Phila- 
delphia : Lyman ; and Helen, widow of Lucian 
S. Coman. a record of whose life appears else- 
where in this work. 




ISS MARY BARBARY APPOLD, 
who resides with her brother Fred- 
erick in Frankenlust township and 
is the owner of valuable land bor- 
dering on the Saginaw River in that township, 
not far from Bay City, is a lady who enjoys the 
respect and esteem of a very wide circle of 
friends and acquaintances. She belongs to a 
fine old family of this section and was the only 
rlaug-hter in the family of seven children born 
to her parents, John C. and Barbara (Arnold) 
Appold. Miss Ap]3old was born in lier parents' 



590 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



farm in section 5, Frankenlnst township, Jan- 
uary 26, 1859. 

The parents of Miss Appold were botli born 
in Germany, crossed the ocean in the same ship 
and were married in 1853 at Bay City. They 
became prominent and wealthy people in Bay 
County, through their own industry, economy 
and good management. The father took a lead- 
ing position in the township and served hon- 
orably in many of the public offices of trust 
and responsibility, and when, in the fullness of 
time, on April 9, 1903, he passed away, his 
memory was perpetuated through the influences 
of a life of Christian uprightness. The mother 
brought her children up carefully and well and 
her six sons and one daughter reflect credit 
upon their rearing. She died December i, 
1890. Their children were: Michael, of 
Frankenlnst township; John Jacob, of Moni- 
tor township ; Mary Barbara, of this sketch ; 
George, of Williams township; Christian, of 
Frankenlnst township ; Frederick, of Franken- 
lnst township; and Leonard, of Huron County. 

Miss Appold remained with her aged par- 
ents until the close of their lives, giving them 
tender, filial care ; in fact, she has not only 
been the daughter and sister of the family, 
but also the willing and capable nurse. For 
the last five years of her father's life, she lived 
in a new home built by him opposite the old 
homestead. Since his death she has lived with 
her brother Frederick. She owns considerable 
valuable property, including 10 acres, with 
home, in section 8, on Stone Island, and two 
other tracts. She attends to the operating of 
her farms personally and very successfully. 

Since she was a babe five days old. a niece 
of Miss Appold. Johanna Appold. has had a 
home with our subject. Johanna was born 
June 14. i8g8, and is a daughter of George 
Appold, who is a scliool teacher in Monitor 
township. The mother died at her birth as also 



did a twin brother, but she has found a mother 
in her aunt. 

Miss Appold is very highly valued in the 
German Lutheran Church in which she has 
taken an active interest all her life, and she 
is noted for her kind neighborliness and her 
estimable Christian character. 




ILLIAM M. KELLEY, who is now 
serving in his third term as justice 
of the Police Court of Bay City, 
Michigan, has been a resident of 
this city for the past 40 years, during which 
period he has been thoroughly identified with 
its closest interests. Justice Kelley was born in 
Kings County, Ireland, February 28, 1831, 
and came to America in his 19th year. 

Prior to locating permanently at Bay City, 
William M. Kelley followed the life of a sailor 
on the Great Lakes for the most of the period 
1849-64, his place of residence being Buffalo, 
New York. Beginning as a wheelman, he con- 
tinued until he became master, and finally 
owner as well, of many of the stanchest vessels 
afloat on these waters. He was captain of his 
own tug for five years previous to settling at 
Bay City. After selling his interest in this ves- 
sel he engaged for five years in a grocery busi- 
ness and also kept an interest in various vessels 
until the fall of 1876. when he was elected 
county clerk on the Republican ticket. He 
served three terms notwithstanding the fact 
that the county was then largely Democratic. 
At one time he had the distinction of being 
the only Republican county officer elected. His 
service as county clerk closed December 31, 
1882, and shortly after he was appointed deputy 
oil inspector, a position he filled for 15 months. 
During the succeeding three or four years he 
was employed in one or other of the county 




J. MADISON JOHNSTON 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



593 



offices until his election to his present office, in 
which he is efficiently serving his loth year. 

Justice Kelley was married at Buft'alo, New 
York, to Sarah A. Waite of that city, and they 
have four children : Georgiana, a kindergarten 
teacher in West Bay City; William, a lumber 
inspector at Menominee, Michigan ; Arthur, at 
home ; and Genevieve, a student at the State 
Normal School at Ypsilanti. 

Justice Kelley is very prominent in Ma- 
sonry. He is a member of Bay Lodge, No. 
129, F. & A. M.; Blanchard Chapter, No. 59, 
R. A. M. ; Bay City Commandery, Knights 
Templar, No. 26, in which he was high priest 
for three terms and has filled nearly all the 
offices ; and the Detroit Consistory. For )-ears 
he has taken a very active part in fraternal 
affairs and is well and favorably known in 
this connection all over the State. In his re- 
ligious views he is an Episcopalian. 




MADISON JOHNSTON, who has 
filled at different times the offices of 
county surveyor and surveyor of 
Bay City, came here from Green Bay, 
Wisconsin, in 1853. He was born at Green 
Bay, Wisconsin. February 18, 1833, his parents 
being George and Phyllis (McPherson) John- 
ston. George Johnston's brother William was 
the father of Gen. Joseph E. Jdlmstmi. the 
noted Confederate leader. 

The paternal grandfather of our subject 
was one of the last of the clan Johnston in 
Scotland, from which country he emigrated to 
.America in colonial days, settling in Virginia. 
He was a soldier in the War of the Revolution, 
and became a prosperous planter and slave- 
owner in Rockingham County. 

George Johnston was Ixirn and reared on 



his father's plantation in Rockingham County, 
Virginia. While still a young man, and prior 
to the War of 181 2, he removed to Detroit, 
where he was married and his two oldest chil- 
dren were born. He was a captain of dragoons 
in our second war with England, and in the 
reports of the battle of Brownstone is men- 
tioned with praise. At the surrender of De- 
troit he was taken prisoner and carried to Fort 
George, Canada. Later he was exchanged, 
joined the army of General Harrison and took 
part in the battle of the Thames. He was ap- 
pointed sutler at the close of the war, and in 
1819 was stationed at Fort Howard (Green 
Bay), situated in what is now Wi.sconsin, but 
was then included in the Territory of Michi- 
gan. Early in 1827 the Winnebagoes became 
hostile, and the murders and depredations com- 
mitted by them led the Secretary of War to 
order out the troops to arrest the murderers. 
There were but few soldiers at Fort Howard, 
and the commanding officer called upon the 
citizens for assistance and appointed George 
Johnston captain of the company which was 
formed. In 18 18, when Brown County, Mich- 
igan (now Wisconsin), was formed, he be- 
came its first sheriff, and held the office until 
1829. 

The first action toward the organization of 
a lodge of Free Masons in the Northwest was 
taken on the 27th of December, 1823, at the 
house of George Johnston, at which time a 
petition was drafted. A dispensation w-as 
granted by the Grand Lodge, and on September 
2, 1824, Menominee Lodge was organized at 
Fort Howard. He was captain of a band of 
Menominee Indians against Black Hawk and 
his allies in the Black Hawk War in 1832, and 
after its conclusion returned to Fort Howard. 
After resigning he became an Indian trader, 
buying and selling furs, and continued in that 



sa 



594 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



business until his death in 1850 at the age of 
72 years. 

George Johnston was a man of powerful 
build, six feet two inches tall, and weighed 
220 pounds. He was fearless and much ad- 
mired by the Indians, having many friends 
among the Menominees, Winnebagoes and 
Pottawatomies, whose languages he spoke. He 
left much real estate which grew in value and 
placed his family in comfortable circumstances. 
Politically, he was a Jacksonian Democrat. 
His religious ties were with the Protestant 
Episcopal Church. 

George Johnston married Phyllis McPher- 
son, who was born in Montreal, Canada. Her 
father, John McPherson^ was a native of Mas- 
sachusetts. He began to follow the sea early 
in life, later became a navigator on the Great 
Lakes and was the first man to draw a 
chart of the Upper Lakes. He was a man of 
powerful physique and splendid address. His 
wife, our subject's mother, was reared in De- 
troit, to which city the Captain retired when 
his sailing days were over, and where she died 
in 1856. at the age of 70 years. She was a life- 
long member of the Roman Catholic Church. 

J. Madison Johnston, the subject of this 
sketch, was the 5-oungest of a family of eight 
sons and one daughter. One of his brothers. 
Thomas J. Johnston, was a general in the Con- 
federate Army, and after the war became a 
Catholic priest. Before his. death he was made 
canon of the Diocese of San Antonio, Texas. 

Our subject was reared at Green Bay, his 
educational opportunities being limited to three 
months of each year in the little log school 
house. At the age of 16, he began trading with 
the Indians, having by that time acquired con- 
siderable fluency in the language of the Me- 
nominees. His business grew until he became 
an extensive dealer in furs for those days. He 
was a fine shot, and his undaunted cotirage won 



him the admiration of the Indians. These 
qualities, together with the Indians' supersti- 
tion regarding his father, combined to protect 
him from the many dangers to which he was 
exposed. His summer seasons were spent in 
the woods in the employ of the Government 
Survey, and it was in this way that he acquired 
a practical knowledge of the profession which 
he was ultimately to follow. 

In 1853, Mr. Johnston came to Lower Sag- 
inaw (now Bay City) on the ill-fated steamer 
"Huron," which foundered on a rock at the 
mouth of the Saginaw River. The Captain and 
our subject came up to the city in a small boat 
and that night they stopped at the hotel kept 
by John Barclay. At that time Bay City 
boasted only one board sidewalk, and of this 
the citizens were very proud. 

At that time there was very little surveying 
to be done in this region, and Mr. Johnston 
clerked for one year in the general store of his 
cousin, James Watson, one of the earliest mer- 
chants in Lower Saginaw. With the savings 
he had accumulated he then purchased a ves- 
sel which he named the "King Fisher," and 
embarked in the business of fishing. This ven- 
ture proved profitable, and he was soon able 
to have a fleet of boats built to engage in fish- 
ing in Saginaw Bay and Thunder Bay. His 
fisiiing operations were carried on during the 
fall and spring seasons and, commencing in 
1855, his summers were employed in surveying 
until the outbreak of the war. Since 1861 his 
entire time has been given to the practice of 
his profession. Mr. Johnston was elected 
county surveyor in 1864 and served in that 
office until 1868. Bj^ that time his personal 
practice had grown to such proportions that 
he felt it necessary to decline the office to which 
he had been reelected. In 1873, however, he 
was prevailed upon to accept the office of city 
surveyor of Bay City, the duties of which he 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



595 



discharged most efficiently until 1881, when 
he was succeeded by Capt. George Turner. 

In 1883, Mr. Johnston made a trip to Hon- 
duras, Central America, to engage in prospect- 
ing and placer mining on the Polia River. He 
was thus engaged as president of the Bay City 
Mining Company. But although he found 
some gold, he had not the facilities for mining 
it. and returned to Bay City the following 
summer. Since that time he has devoted him- 
self exclusively to civil engineering, and is the 
oldest man in that profession here. Previous 
to 1853, our subject and his brother John 
located the first mail route between Escanaba 
and Marquette, Michigan. This route was 
marked by "blazed" trees and was used for 
many years. 

In 1858, Mr. Johnston married Hannah 
Reid, a daughter of Wilbur Reid, of Paines- 
ville. Ohio. She was a member of the First 
Presbyterian Church. She died in 1869, leav- 
ing five children, of whom two are now living : 
Carrie E., wife of A. G. Parker, of Minneapo- 
lis, Minnesota; and Belle A., who resides with 
her sister. 

On December 25, 1890, our subject mar- 
ried Martha Edgerton. who was born at Eagle, 
Clinton County, Michigan, and is a daughter 
of H. M. and Rebecca (Kilbourn) Stark, early 
settlers of that locality. Her mother was a 
native of New York State, but for many years 
was a resident of Cincinnati, Ohio. Mrs. John- 
ston was one of a fatnily of nine children, and 
received her early education in West Bay City. 
She taught the first school in the Pinconning 
school house, beginning with 30 Indian and 
four white pupils. At that time she was only 
17 years old. This second union of our sub- 
ject has been blessed with two children: J. 
Madison, Jr. ; and Edgerton Stark. Mrs. John- 
ston is an active member of the Universalist 
congregation, while in his religious views Mr. 



Johnston is an Agnostic. While never a seeker 
for political preferment for himself, he is an 
active Democrat, and has done good service on 
ward and city cominittees. His portrait accom- 
panies this sketch. 




HARLES C. UNDERWOOD. After 
one has li\'ed for 20 years on a farm 
which he has cleared up from a 
wilderness, it naturally possesses 
great value, and especially so when it is well- 
situated, well-improved and very productive. 
This is the case with the 40-acre farm owned by 
the subject of this sketch, which is located in 
section 36, Portsmouth township. Mr. Under- 
wood has always lived in Bay County and was 
born in Hampton township, January 13. 1859. 
He is a son of Jesse Underwood, who was 
born in England, January 9, 1823. 

Jesse Underwood came to America with 
his wife in 1857. She was then the mother of 
five children. The family settled on 40 acres 
of land, located on the Center avenue road in 
Hainpton township, which Mr. Underwood 
cleared and upon which he made many im- 
provements. There he died on November 7. 
1903, and his wife on November 26, 1897. 
aged yy years. The eight children of the fam- 
ily were: Clara (Mrs. Gracey), of Ports- 
mouth township: Henn.-. of Portsmouth town- 
ship; Jennett (Mrs. Miller), who died in 
California; Selena (Mrs. Cassedy), of Grand 
Rapids, Michigan : Abner. who was acciden- 
tally killed in Hampton township, at the age of. 
27 years: Charles C. of this sketch: .Mbert. of 
Portsmouth township : and Ira, who lives on the 
old homestead in Hampton township. 

As noted above, our subject has done all the 
improving on his farm and has devoted it to 
general farming, market-gardening and fruit- 



596 



HISTORY OF BAY COUXTY 



growing. He is one of tlie practical agricul- 
turists of this section, thoroughly understands 
his husiness and has made a success of farming. 

On November i, 1882, Mr. Underwood was 
married to Mary Whalen, who was born in 
Bay City, on September 19, 1865, and is a 
daughter of Alva and Rosella (Young) 
\\"halen, the former of whom w-as born in New 
York and the latter in ^lichigan. They have a 
family of four daughters who have been af- 
forded excellent educational opportunities : 
Alice M., wife of \\'illiam E. Collins, of Bay 
City; and Mary Jennett, Maggie Ann and 
Agnes E., who reside at home. ilrs. Under- 
wood and her daughters are valued members 
of the Baptist Church. 

Politically ^Ir. Underwood has always af- 
filiated with the Republican party. He is a 
member of two fraternal bodies, the Maccabees 
and the Gleaners. 




UCIEX S. CO^IAX, deceased, was for 
many years engaged in the wholesale 
and retail drug trade at Bay City and 
took rank among the foremost busi- 
ness men of the county. He was bom at ilor- 
risville. New York, and was a son of Smith 
and Louise (Bickwell) Coman, his inaternal 
grandfather being Major Bickwell. 

Lucien S. Coman received his educational 
training in the public schools of Morrisville, 
New York, and from his Ixiyhood days was 
identified with the drug business. .\t the age 
of 19 years, he came \^'est to Bay City, ^lichi- 
gan, to manage a drug-store, and later started 
in business for himself. He was a man of 
great energy and enterprise and made a suc- 
cess of his venture from the first. He gave en- 
couragement to all worthy young clerks he 
employed. 



Many of these young men, becom- 



ing imbued with his principles and business 
methods, went forth into the world and now 
own stores of their own, some of them having 
stores in Bay City. ^Ir. Coman's success was 
such as to w-arrant him in extending the field of 
his energies and he established a wholesale and 
retail drug-store, which he conducted until his 
death in 1887. After his death, his widow- 
continued the business for two and a half years, 
employing a manager. Mr. Coman was united 
in marriage with Mrs. Helen F. Clark, uee 
Barclay, and their home life approached the 
ideal. 

Helen F. Barclay was bom in Detroit, 
Michigan, and is a daughter of Hon. Jonathan 
Smith and Sarah Ann (Sweeney) Barclay, 
her father having been a prominent man of 
Bay City in its early days and for many years 
thereafter. She received a good education, and 
is a woman of culture and refinement. Her 
first marriage was with Harry J. Clark, who 
was the first cashier of the First National Bank 
of Bay City, and thej' had one daughter. Grace 
Barclay Clark, who now resides with her 
mother. After the death of ^Ir. Clark, Mrs. 
Clark was married to Mr. Coman. To this 
union two children were born, namely : Harri- 
son L.. who is at home: and Marian Louise, 
wife of Harry B. Phelps, of Detroit. ^Ir. 
Coman was a Royal Arch ]\Iason and Knight 
Templar. Mrs. Coman has been regent of the 
Daughters of the American Revolution, and 
was the first president and founder of the Bay 
City \\'oman's Club, which had its inception 
in her parlors. She moves in the Itest 
circles of the city and is identified with 
its literary clubs and societies, being a 
\-ery able writer. Her memory of the 
happenings in the early days of Bay 
County is remarkably fresh and she has at times 
written articles for newspapers and the D. A. 
R. Mrs. Coman has been an extensive traveler 



AXD REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



597 



at home and abroad, having visited all foreign 
lands. She is a fluent speaker of the German 
language, which has proved of great conveni- 
ence in her travels. She had the pleasure of 
seeing the palace of Frederick the Great, of 
Germany, and as there were royal functions at 
the time of her visit she saw the Empress with 
her body-guard and many of the royalty of 
Europe. 




ILLIAM E. :\IAGILL, :\I. D.. physi- 
cian and surgeon and also city 
treasurer of \\'est Bay City. Michi- 
gan, was born at Port Stanley, 
Ontario, November 3, 1847. and is a son of 
Alexander and Sarah (Mclnnis) Magill. 

The father of Dr. Magill was born at the 
village of WHiitern, near Glasgow, Scotland, in 
1788 and died in Canada in 1849. ^g^d 61 
years. He emigrated to Canada in 1834. be- 
ing among the early pioneers in Ontario, where 
he secured a large holding of land and followed 
agricultural operations all his remaining years. 
In Scotland he married Sarah Mclnnis. who 
was a daughter of Henry iMcInnis. and they 
had 1 1 children born to them, those who 
reached maturity being: Henry and John, now 
deceased ; Alexander, a practicing physician at 
Midland. Michigan; Elizabeth, who married 
William Glover and lives on the old homestead 
at Port Stanley: Mary, who married Samuel 
Mason, of London, Ontario: Sarah, of Chi- 
cago; William E., of this sketch: and Bessie, 
of Chicago. For generations the family has 
belonged to the Presbyterian Church. 

^\'ilHam McGill was primarily educated in 
the public schools and then read medicine and 
prepared for higher study under the preceptor- 
ship of Dr. James McLaughlin, of Fingall, On- 
tario, and subsequently entered the Western 
Reserve Medical College at Cleveland, Ohio, 



where he was graduated in 1870. He located 
at West Bay City and has continued here ever 
since with the exception of the years 1876 and 
1877, which he spent in post-graduate work at 
Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York 
City, receiving his medical degree from that 
great school in 1877. 

Dr. Magill is a very intelligent, progressive 
citizen and has always taken an active interest 
in public affairs. Originally a Greenbacker, he 
was twice elected mayor on this ticket, serving 
in 1881 and 1882. and in the fall of the latter 
year was elected county treasurer on the same 
ticket and held the office for two j^ears, and in 
1886 was re-elected and held office until 1890. 
During Governor \\'inans' administration. Dr. 
Magill was appointed insurance commissioner 
for Michigan, an office he filled acceptably for 
two years. In April, 1903, he was elected 
treasurer of West Bay City. His public serv- 
ices have always been of such a character as 
to command the confidence of the public, irre- 
spective of party ties. 

Dr. Magill married Adeline Keefer, who is 
a daughter of Abram Keefer. a prominent citi- 
zen of Lawrence. Kansas, and they have had 
four children, viz. : Arthur K., who died aged 
14 years; Walter A., of West Bay City; Don- 
ald A. and Frances Sarah. The family belong 
to the Presbyterian Church. 

Fraternall}', Dr. Magill has been prominent 
in a number of the leading organizations. He 
is a memljer of W^enona Lodge, F. & A. M.. 
Blanchard Chapter R. A. M., and Bay City 
Commandery K. T. : and the Sovereign Con- 
sistory. S. P. R. S.. and Moslem Temple. A. 
A. O. N. M. S., at Detroit: for 31 years he has 
been a member of Wenona Lodge. I. O. O. F.. 
of which he is past grand; for 27 years has 
lieen a member of the Royal Arcanum and a 
charter member of Wenona Council. No. 38. 
He is also a member of the Knights of the 



598 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Loyal Guard and of tlie Independent Order of 
Foresters. Dr. ]Magill is a very prominent 
citizen and is known professionally far beyond 
the confines of West Bav City. 




ICHAEL T. ARNOLD, whose fine 
farm of 200 acres is situated in 
section 10, Monitor township, was 
born December 6, 1861, in Frank- 
enmutli township. Saginaw county, and is a 
son of John ]\I. and Barbara (List) Arnold. 

John ^I. Arnold, the father of our subject, 
was born October 20, 1820, in Hosstetten 
Kloster, Heilsbronn, ^littelfranken, Bavaria, 
Germany, while his wife was born in the neigh- 
boring town of Rosstall Cadolzburg, in ]\Iittel- 
franken, Bavaria, Germany, April i, 1S25. 
Both left the fatherland on the 7th day of April, 
1847, and on June 12th of that year arrived in 
Frankenmuth township, Saginaw County, 
Michigan. After living there about 18 years, 
they sold the farm and left for Bay County, 
April 17, 1865, arriving at Stone Island the 
next day. ]\Ir. Arnold erected a sawmill, which 
he continued to operate until he sold it June 27, 
1867. He then purchased 180 acres of land 
in section 36, Monitor township, on which farm 
he died February 8, 1878. The subject of this 
sketch has one brother and four sisters in 
Michigan, namely : Adam J., who owns a farm 
in Monitor township ; Mary, who is the widow 
of George Staudacher, of Kawkawlin town- 
ship; Rose, the wife of Fred Staudacher; Bar- 
bara, who is the wife of Fred Lowessell; and 
Mary. The three last mentioned are residents 
of Salzburg, Bay County. 

Alichael J. Arnold attended the district 
school of the neighborhood and assisted on his 
father's farm until h.e started out for b.imsclf. 
about 1887. At thp.t time lie purchased his pres- 



ent farm of 200 acres, only four acres of which 
had been cleared. At the present time, 120 
acres are under cultivation, the remainder of 
the farm being in pasture and brush land. Mr. 
Arnold has made many substantial impro\e- 
ments on the property and has just completed 
a fine residence of 18 rooms, which contains 
all the comforts and conveniences of a city 
home. The polished oak trimmings, which 
give the interior such an artistic finish, came 
from timber that was cut on his estate. 

Mr. Arnold was married first, in 1890, to 
Annie Swatz, who was a daughter of Christian 
Swatz. Mrs. Arnold at her death left one 
daughter, Emma R., born January 3, 1892, 
who resides at home. On January 27. 1895, 
Mr. Arnold was married to Mrs. Mary Kraenz- 
lein, the widow of Henry Kraenzlein. whose 
death was caused by fatal injuries recei\-ed 
from being run over by a railroad train, his 
death occurring two weeks after the accident. 
Mrs. Arnold has two children by her first 
marriage, — John M. and Katie M. Kraenzlein. 
Our subject and his wife have one daughter, 
Laura B. Arnold, born June 3, 1896. 

Mrs. Arnold was born December 16. 1865, 
in Mittelfranken, Bavaria, Germany, and is 
a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Oeder. Mr. 
Oeder was a carpenter in Bavaria, Germany, 
before coming to this country, at which time 
Mrs. Arnold was three years of age, and there- 
fore does not recall many events of the long 
six weeks' voyage on the ocean. Mr. and Mrs. 
Oeder first lived in Bay City, afterward oper- 
ated a farm in Bangor township, which they 
later sold and moved to Standish, Michigan, 
where they live at the present time. There were 
seven children in their family as follows : Fred, 
of Bangor township ; Alichael, who resides with 
his father at Standish ; Margaret B., wife of 
John P. Ittner, of Beaver township; Barbara, 
wife of George Gerbauser, of Frankenlust 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



599 



township; Katherine. wife of William Hubner, 
of Portsmouth township; Sophia, wife of Ed- 
ward Schuman, of Bangor township; and 
Mary, the wife of the subject of this sketch. 
The Oeder family are members of the German 
Lutheran Church. 

Mr. Arnold is best known, perhaps, for his 
connection with the coal industry of this sec- 
tion. He has been interested in the discovery 
of some of the most prominent and best known 
coal mines of Bay County. On September i8, 
1896, he found and struck the first coal on the 
Albert Pfundt place, at a depth of 121 feet. 
The following year two shafts were erected, 
and the two mines are known as the Michigan 
and Central mines. On January 6, 1898, in 
the presence of Messrs. Maxon, Flower and 
Lewis Howe, he found a vein of coal on the 
Von Alstein Place, in Bangor township, at a 
depth of 124 feet. This was the first test-hole 
put down for coal in that vicinity ; it was some- 
what outside of what has been found to be 
the main vein and consequently only a small 
quantity of coal was struck. But one year 
later, however, Messrs. Voss and Jackson had 
a good shaft erected three-quarters of a mile 
east of the test-hole and have been mining ever 
since. This is the well-known Wenona mine. 
Mr. Arnold also enjoys the distinction of hav- 
ing been the first one to discover Wolverine 
coal here. While drilling on his farm in the 
southern part of section 10, in Monitor town- 
ship, on Decemlier 6, 1898, he discovered coal. 
From there the vein runs directly southwest to 
the present shaft of the mine called Wolverine 
mine No. 2. A litttle over a year later, while 
drilling on the Everson farm, he located an- 
other coal bed, and struck on March 20. 1900, 
in tlie presence of his helper, Henry Erbisch, 
and Messrs. Everson, Johnson and Hunter, 
what has proved to be one of the best-]iaying 
coal mines in the State of Michigan, which is 



known as Wolverine No. 3. Views of the 
Wenona and Wolverine No. 3 are shown earlier 
in this work, on a foregoing page. As these 
mines have been very extensively operated 
ever since their discovery, and as the Pere 
]\Iarquette Railroad to the Wolverine mines 
was built especially for the purpose of provid- 
ing transportation for the product of the mines, 
it can be said that Mr. Arnold, through his dis- 
coveries of coal, has been of great assistance in 
developing Bay County and bringing prosperity 
to the doors of its inhabitants. 

About the same time that he made these 
discoveries of coal, he leased some 3,000 acres 
of land of the farmers in his neighborhood for 
coal development purposes, but on May 29, 
1901 , he sold all his leases and machinery to the 
Handy Brothers Mining Company, of Bay 
City, with the exception of the famous drill 
that has brought him so much wealth. He has 
no intention of parting with it. 

Mr. Arnold is a progressive and enterpris- 
ing man, one w'ho has shown judgment and 
foresight in business life, and he stands well in 
his community. In politics he is a Republican. 




E\'. EDWARD AUGUSTIN LE- 
FEBVRE, pastor of St. Michael's 
Catholic Church at Pinconning, was 
Irani at Saginaw, Michigan, in 1868, 
and is a son of Augustin and Rachael (Viau) 
Lefebvre. His father died in 1878, in his 47th 
year, and his mother now resides with him at 
the parsonage in Pinconning. 

Father Lefebvre received his primary edu- 
cation at St. Andrew's Academy and the High 
School at Saginaw, and afterward took an 
academic course at Assumption College. Sand- 
wich, Ontario, from which he was graduated 
in 1886. He then completed his philosophical 



6oo 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and theological courses in the Grand Seminary 
at Montreal, Pro\ince of Quebec, and was then 
ordained to the priesthood. He became as- 
sistant pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church, 
West Bay City, and at the end of seven months 
was transferred to Sacred Heart Catholic 
Church at Au Sable. Michigan, as assistant 
pastor. He remained there until March, 1893, 
when he was called to St. ^Michael's Catholic 
Church at Pinconning, of which he has since 
had charge. The parsonage, which was under 
course of construction at his coming, he com- 
pleted, adding improvements to the amount 
of $1,000. He has also added $2,500 in im- 
provements to the church, increasing its seating 
capacity by one-third, and under his direction 
the congregation has purchased a cemetery of 
five acres lying along the river. 

Prior to the organization of a parish here, 
Pinconning was visited by a Jesuit missionary. 
Father Shular, whose devoted work through 
this section of the county was of such value to 
the church as to live as a monument to his 
memory. He discontinued his visits here in 
1889 and was succeeded by Rev. John G. San- 
son, pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church at 
West Bay City, whose mission it continued 
until 1 89 1. In that year Rev. C. H. Dequoy 
was appointed pastor of St. Michael's Catholic 
Church and its missions, which included Lin- 
wood. Gladwin. Standish and AuGres. He 
was succeeded in 1893 by Father Lefebvre, 
who was assisted from October, 1893, until 
April of the following year by Rev. L. H. 
Gourin, D. D., and again from April, 1899, to 
November, 1901, by Rev. Arthur La Mon- 
tague. In 1894, the Linwood mission was de- 
tached and made the parish of St. Ann. and in 
1901 the Standish mission was detached and 
made the parish of St. John the Baptist. But 
one mission remains attached to St. Michael's, 
that of the Sacred Heart, at Gladwin. St. 



Michael's Church has a congregation of mixed 
nationality, and in 1904 the Polish element 
erected a chapel at Nine ]\Iile. a flag station in 
Mount Forest township. Father Lefebvre has 
labored faithfully and well over his charge, and 
many are the kind deeds and charities traceable 
to his door. 

The subject of the above sketch has been 
transferred to St. Ann's Catholic Church, 
Cadillac, Michigan, since he was interviewed. 




ORTON GALLAGHER. M. D., 
one of the leading medical practi- 
tioners of Bay City, was born May 
19, 1863, at Portland, Ontario, 
Canada, and is a son of William Gallagher. 

The father of Dr. Gallagher was born in the 
North of Ireland, and the mother, in Canada. 
W'illiam Gallagher was a pioneer in his sec- 
tion of Ontario, where his 10 children were 
born. All survive with one exception, and our 
subject is the ninth member of the family. 

Morton Gallagher was educated in the pub- 
lic schools at Portland and the Athens (On- 
tario) High School and then taught a country 
school for several years. During these years. 
1882 and 1883, he prepared for entrance to 
the Queen's Medical College, at Kingston, On- 
tario. The records of that institution show 
that at the end of his third year he stood third 
in a competitive examination and was awarded 
the position of interne for six months. He 
was graduated with the class of 1887, but was 
then obliged to pass still another examination, 
that of the physicians and surgeons, before he 
could practice in Ontario, where the rules gov- 
erning medical practice are more strict than 
this side of the border. Each student passes 
three searching examinations : the primary, the 
intermediate and the final. To the public this 



/^ '^^niil^ 



•*f 




ISAAC H. HILL 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



603 



seems as it should be, for upon the physician's 
knowledg'e and in his trained liands rest respon- 
sibilities of vast consequence to his fellow 
mortals. 

After Dr. Gallagher was thus well prepared 
to enter upon practice, he settled in the town 
of Campbell ford, Ontario, where he remained 
for seven years. In looking about for another 
location where he would find a wider field of 
etTort, he selected Bay City and came here in 
May, 1894, previously having taken, in 1893, 
a post-graduate course at the Polyclinic Col- 
lege and Hospital, New York City. Dr. Gal- 
lagher is well known to the public of Bay City, 
both professionally and otherwise, and is held 
in universal esteem. He is president of the 
Bay County Medical Society and belongs also 
to the American Medical Association and the 
Michigan State Medical Society. 

Dr. Gallagher was married in Ontario to 
Emily Tucker, who was born in Canada. They 
have a family of seven children, viz: Sherman 
G., Florence E.. William H., Fletcher T., Helen 
J., Marion M. and Pauline. 

Dr. Gallagher has served as a member of 
the Board of Health of Bay City and also on 
the Board of Education. He is an active mem- 
ber of a number of social bodies and fraternal 
organizations, including the Odd Fellows and 
the Masons. 



SAAC H. HILL. Among the history 
builders of Bay City. Michigan, was 
the late Isaac H. Hill, whose portrait 
accompanies this sketch. He was pres- 
ident of the Michigan Pipe Works, manager of 
the Bay City Bridge Company and closely 
identified with many of the other great busi- 
ness interests of this section. Mr. Hill was 
born in Tompkins County, New York, in 1814. 
After the death of his first wife, he moved to 



Tyrone, Schuyler County, and after his long 
and useful life had closed, his remains were 
taken back and laid to rest with the dust of his 
ancestors. 

Mr. Hill was of great service to Bay City 
in many capacities. His business abilities, exec- 
utive power and high sense of commercial in- 
tegrity made his service of great importance. 
He was one of the moving spirits in the found- 
ing of numerous industries and the present 
prosperity and scope of the Michigan Pipe 
Works are due directly to his efiforts. In many 
other departments of activity, he was promi- 
nent. His was a busy life, one which reflects 
credit and honor upon this city and his name 
will long be perpetuated by what he succeeded 
in accomplishing. 

In 1848, Mr. Hill was married, in Steu- 
ben County, New York, to his second wife, — 
Mrs. Susan Ann Hale, widow of Samuel P. 
Hale and daughter of Henry S. and Margaret 
(Teeple) Williams. Mrs. Hill was born June 
30, 1829. Her two children by her first mar- 
riage are deceased. Four children were bom 
to Mr. and Mrs. Hill, the two survivors being: 
Mary, who is the wife of H. B. Smith, of the 
Alichigan Pipe Works; and Charles H. Hill, 
also financially interested in the Michigan Pipe 
Works and a resident of Bay City, who married 
Bertha Hay. 

The father of Mrs. Hill was a merchant in 
Steuben County, New York, for many years, 
also county judge for several years, in which 
office he was serving at the time of his death. 
Mrs. Hall was reared and educated in Steuben 
Cotmty, being one of a family of six children. 
Her interests have been centered in Bay City 
for more than half her life-tiine and there are 
few ladies in private life here who are more 
beloved or esteemed for noble qualities of mind 
and heart. She can recall all the various steps 
by which Bay City has climbed from a small 



6o 1 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



lumber town to its present prosperity, and in 
the furthering of all those agencies looking to 
the establishment of schools, churches and char- 
ities, she has taken an active part. Her beauti- 
ful home is situated at No. 1403 Fifth street, 
Bay City. 




OHN C. ROWDEN, a well-known 
citizen of Auburn, Bay County, Mich- 
igan, is a lawyer by profession and en- 
joys a fair land and pension practice. 
He was born in Devonshire, England, Febru- 
ary 9, 1844, and is a son of John and Mary 
(Crispin) Rowden. 

John Rowden, the father, was Ijorn in Eng- 
land and came to this country with his wife 
and four children in the fall of 1854. The 
voyage from Plymouth, England, to Quebec, 
Canada, on the sailing vessel "Oriental" con- 
sumed more than seven weeks. They proceeded 
straightway to Detroit, JMichigan, thence to 
Williams township, Bay County, the latter part 
of the journey taking three weeks, as there were 
no roads. They followed bridle paths and fre- 
quently found it necessary to go ahead and cut 
a way. His oldest son. Samuel, had preceded 
him by two years, and together they took up 
80 acres under the preemption act. They 
cleared the virgin land of its timber and under- 
brush, erected a cabin and then set to work to 
cultivate the land. Provisions were exceedingly 
scarce and they experienced all the hardships 
incidental to pioneer life. The father was a 
Republican in politics, and a man of a high 
order of intellect. He possessed a wonderful 
memory, and, although not a member of any 
church, was able to tell the book and verse of 
any passage in the Bible when he heard it. He 
died in 1877, at the age of 79 years, and his 
wife died one month later, at the same age. He 
had two brothers, William, a private in the 



Queen's Guards, of the English Annv, who 
probably lost his life in the siege of Sebastopol, 
as he was last heard of there ; and Robert, who 
was commander of the battleship "Warrior," 
in the English Xavy. j\lr. Rowden married 
Mary Crispin and they had the following chil- 
dren: Samuel, of West Bay City; Mrs. Mary 
Ann Kent, a widow ; Mrs. Susan Dutton, who 
died in 1903 and was buried at Fentonville, 
Michigan ; John and Martha, who died in Eng- 
land; and John C, our subject. 

John C. Rowden's schooling was limited to 
two years, and his education was mainly ac- 
quired by private research in such books as he 
could borrow. He frequently walked a dis- 
tance of 10 miles to borrow a book, which he 
would peruse thoroughly and carefully. He 
developed a taste for study and began reading 
law, gaining his knowledge in a slow way as 
opportunity presented itself. He passed the ex- 
aminations of the Department of the Interior 
in 1 88 1, and in 1895 was admitted to the bar of 
Bay County. He has established a remunera- 
tive land and pension practice, and maintains 
his office at Auburn. He voted the Republican 
ticket until 1866, since which time he has been 
independent in politics. In 1901, he was elected 
representative from the Second District, on the 
Industrial ticket, receiving the endorsement of 
the Democratic party. He served one term in 
that capacity, two terms as supervisor and two 
terms as justice of the peace. 

On August 2, 1862, at the age of 18 years, 
Mr. Rowden enlisted in Company F, 23rd Reg., 
Michigan Vol. Inf., and was mustered in on 
September i itli for a term of three years. He 
was shot in the hip joint while serving at Dal- 
las, Texas. May 28, 1864. and on No\'ember 
30th of that year received a bullet wound in 
the head at the battle of Franklin, Tennessee. 
He rose from private to 2d sergeant as a re- 
sult of bravery in carrying ammunition to the 



AND REPRESExXTATlVE CITIZENS. 



605 



firing line in tlie face of severe fighting, being 
promoted over 1 1 non-commissioned officers, 
who magnanimously congratulated him for 
merited reward. He later was advanced to be 
1st sergeant, April 5, 1865, and was discharged 
at Salisbury, North Carolina, June 28, 1865. 
He participated in the following engagements : 
Campbell's Station, Lenoir, siege of Knoxville, 
Rocky Face Ridge, Resaca, Altoona, Atlanta, 
Franklin, Nash\-i!le, Fort Anderson, W'ilming- 
ton and Goldsboro. He is a member of Mar- 
shall Post No. 407, G. A. R. 

On December 31, 1865. Mr. Rowden mar- 
ried Alice Moore, a daughter of Joseph and 
Eleanor Moore, and they have three children : 
Joseph, of Beaver township; Robert, who lives 
at home : and George Vleit, who at the death of 
his mother, in March, 1880, was taken to raise 
by the Vleit family. Our subject was again 
married July 20, 1881. to Selina Gilbert, a 
daughter of Joseph and Chastina Gilbert. 




REDERICK BEYER, a prosperous 
farmer residing in section 8. Merritt 
township, was born in ^lichelbach, 
Bavaria, Germany. September 6, 
1844, and is a son of Christian and Christine 
(Brunenmeyer) Beyer. 

Christian Beyer was born in Bavaria, (jer- 
many, August i, 181 3, and came to America 
in 1854, locating in Lower Saginaw, now Bay 
City, Michigan. He worked in sawmills and 
cut cord-wood until he retired and went to live 
at the home of bis son, Frederick, where he 
died July 6, 1900, at the age of eighty-seven 
years. He was always a very active and ener- 
getic man and continued so to the time of his 
death, having been walking around the bouse 
within a half hour of the final summons. He 
was a Democrat in politics. Religiously, he 



was a member of the German Lutheran 
Church, and three times assisted in 
building the German Lutheran Church 
at Madison avenue and Eighth street. 
Bay City. He married Christine Brunen- 
meyer, who was born in Bavaria, Germany, and 
died in Bay City, at the age of 69 years and 
five days. They were parents of four children, 
as follows: Adam, a farmer of Portsmouth 
township; Frederick, our subject; John, who 
died at the age of 15 years; and Mary, of 
Muskegon, Michigan. 

Frederick Beyer when a boy came to this 
country w-ith his brother, their parents having 
preceded them to this country about one year. 
They made the journey from Hamburg to New 
York in a sailing vessel, the voyage consuming 
42 days, and during this period occurred the 
nth anniversary of the birth of our subject. 
The law at that time was such that Frederick 
and his brother were too young to travel alone, 
so a friendly lady took oath that she would see 
the boys safely to their parents. She took them 
to Buffalo, Detroit, Toledo and Chicago, 
finally leaving them in the latter city. There 
they remained for seven weeks, the landlord of 
their house taking excellent care of them, and 
when he finally sent them to their uncle in 
Aurora, Illinois, returned their money to them. 
They lived with their uncle two months and 
then went to Pontiac, Michigan, by rail, thence 
by stage to Saginaw, where they joined their 
father and mother. All the trouble had been 
caused by letters being missent. Frederick 
lived at home until he reached the age of 23 
years, working in a sawmill as early as he was 
able. Later, in partnership with his brother, 
he conducted a lath and stave mill for some 
years. Later they both moved to Portsmouth 
township. Bay County, each buying a tract of 
40 acres of good farm land, which they cul- 
tivated. Frederick Bever sold his 40 acres to 



6o6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



good advantage and purchased a farm of 120 
acres in section 8, Merritt township, where he 
has since resided. He has since disposed of 60 
acres of this farm by sale, and one acre by 
donation to the churcli, retaining 59 acres at 
the present time. At the time he acquired it, 
the property was all woodland and unimproved. 
He cleared it of its timber and erected a num- 
ber of good substantial buildings, necessary for 
the successful pursuit of farming. With the 
hardheads he cleared from his place he built the 
foundation for his home, which is one of the 
best farm houses in the township. He has en- 
gaged in general farming and stock-raising; 
making a specialty of Jersey and Durham cat- 
tle of a high grade, and keeps an average of 
about 12 head, of which fi\'e are usually milch 
cows. 

On April 28, 1869. Frederick Beyer was 
united in marriage with Rosena Armbruster, 
who was born in Ohio, February 12, 1850, and 
was a daughter of William Armbruster, of 
Wurtemburg, Germany. She died May 8, 
1889, having given birth to the following chil- 
dren: Fred, of Bay City: Mary, wife of George 
Berndall, of Bay City; William, of Muskegon, 
Michigan; Annie, wife of John Kamiscke, of 
Detroit: Adam, who died young; Maggie, wife 
of Walter Pertenfelder, of Bay City; Adam, 
who lives in Bay City ; Matthew, of Bay City ; 
and Dora. 

On September 20, 1890, Mr. Beyer mar- 
ried Mrs. Justina Mayer, nee Koebres, widow 
of Fred Mayer and a daughter of Adam 
Koebres of Germany. She was born in Wurt- 
emburg, Germany, February 24, 1850, and 
after her first husband's death came to this 
country with her two children : Charles Mayer, 
of Merritt township; and Maggie (Man) of 
Bay City. As a result of this union Mr. and 
Mrs. Beyer have a son, Henry, who is attending 
school at Bay City. 



Our subject was a Democrat in politics un- 
til recent years ; he is now a Republican. He 
served as highway commissioner three years, as 
drainage commissioner two years, as justice of 
the peace eight years, as treasurer of Merritt 
township two years, and as township clerk 13 
consecutive years, filling that office at the pres- 
ent time. Owing to the delicate condition of 
his health he has refused offices of greater re- 
sponsibility. He is a member of the German 
Lutheran Church, to which he donated one 
acre of his farm, and assisted in the erection 
of the present church. 



EORGE LEARNED MOSHER, 
president and manager of the George 
L. Mosher Company, of West Bay 
City, Michigan, retail dealers in 
hardware, house furnishings, farm implements 
and carriages, was born in West Troy, New 
York, January 16, 1850, and is a son of Alfred 
and Amaretta (Learned) Mosher. 

Zabad Mosher, grandfather of our subject, 
was born in Vermont, followed the occupa- 
tions of farming and teaching, and died in 
1872, aged 81 years. His son Alfred Mosher, 
father of our subject, was born April 14, 1819, 
at Royalton, Vermont, and died September 12, 
1898, at Watervliet, New York. 

Alfred Mosher left home when about 16 
years of age and became a grocery clerk in an 
establishment at Troy, New York, which per- 
mitted him to serve in this capacity during the 
winters and to spend his summers on a sloop 
sailing on the Hudson River, He became mas- 
ter and then owner of a vessel and continued on 
the river some 12 years. He then went into a 
lumber business at West Troy, his facilities for 
freighting on his own vessels making this very 
profitable. He became a prominent citizen of 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



607 



W'est Troy, served on the Police Board and was 
elected president of the village. The opening 
u]) of the great lumher interests in this section 
of Michigan attracted him hither in 1870, and 
he immediately began operating in timber lands. 
In 1879 he formed a partnership with his son 
Alfred, the firm name being Mosher & Son, 
and the business continued until it became finan- 
cially embarrassed in 1895. While this proved 
disastrous in a monetary way to Mr. Mosher, 
it proved to him the high regard in which he 
had been held by his fellow-citizens. They had 
implicit confidence in his business integrity 
and they showed that his great misfortune had 
not caused it to be withdrawn. On account of 
the large operations and connections of this 
firm, its failure was a public disaster in the 
sister cities, but Mr. Mosher's honesty was 
never for one moment questioned. Five of his 
nine children reached maturity, viz: George L., 
of West Bay City; Emily R., wife of George 
H. Tilden, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts; Charles 
A., who died in 1885; Ella, who died in 1881 : 
and Alfred, of Bay City. Our subject's parents 
were members of the North Dutch Reformed 
Church of West Troy. 

George L. Mosher came to West Bay City 
in 1873 and was employed for about two years 
in his father's lumber office. Then he pur- 
ch;ised an interest in his present Inisiness, which 
at that time \\as conducted by the firm of Moots 
& Rupff. and the firm style became Motts, 
Crane & Mosher, which continued two years, 
at the close of which period Mr. Mosher pur- 
chased his partners' interests and conducted the 
business alone from 1877 to 1896. In the latter 
year it was incorporated as the George L. 
Mosher Company, with our subject as president 
and manager, and his son, Alfred Locke 
Mother, as secretary and treasurer. This is the 
oldest hardware house in W'est Bay City and 
probably has a larger trade than any other 



retail concern of its line. Mr. Mosher is a care- 
ful, conservative man of business and stands 
very high with the trade and the public. 

Mr. Mosher married Sarah J. Locke, who 
is a daughter of Charles Locke, of W'est Troy, 
New York, and they have three children : Al- 
fred Locke, Ambrose R. and Emily. The fam- 
il\' belong to the Westminster Presbyterian 
Church, of West Bay City. Mr. Mosher is past 
master of W'enona Lodge, No. 296, F. & A. 
M. ; and is a member of Bay City Chapter, No. 
136, R. A. ]\I. ; and Bay City Commandery, 
No. 26, K. T. 




EORGE E. W^EDTHOFF, register of 
deeds for Bay County, Michigan, is 
one of the well-known, reliable and 
substantial citizens of Bay City. Mr. 
Wedthoff was born at Bay City, February 20, 
1870, and is a son of the late Albert R. and 
Louise (Schultz) Wedthoff. 

Our subject's parents were both born in 
Germany. They are both deceased and are 
survived by four sons, our subject being the 
youngest. One brother, W^illiam F., is asso- 
ciated with the New York Life Insurance Com- 
pany. 

George E. Wedthoff is one of Bay City's 
sons who has attained prominence through per- 
sonal endeavor. His school days ended at the 
age of 15 years and in 1885 he entered Judge 
Webster's office. In 1889 he was employed by 
Webster & Pettipiece, who were engaged in 
the abstract business. He was apt, careful and 
observing and after the formation of the Bay 
County Abstract Company he became its man- 
ager in 1895. He continued with that corpor- 
ation until his election as register of deeds in 
19CX). In 1903 he purchased a set of abstract 
books and has continued in the business for 



6oS 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



himself ever since. His careful, accurate, 
thorough work in this line has made his serv- 
ices of the greatest value. Mr. Wedthoff is 
also interested in other enterprises and is vice- 
president (jf the Mutual Building & Loan Asso- 
ciation of Bay County. • 

On September 12, 1894, Mr. \Vedthoff was 
united in marriage with Nellie H. Crippen. who 
was born at Saginaw. Michigan. They have 
one son, Guy G. Mr. Wedthoff is a Republi- 
can in politics. Fraternally he is associated 
with many of the leading organizations, viz: 
Masons, Elks, Modern Woodmen of America, 
Foresters and Loval Guards. 




APT, JOHN Y. McKINNEY, who is 
engaged in market gardening with 
good success, is the owner of a val- 
uable tract of land in Portsmouth 
township, on the boundary line of Bay City. He 
was engaged in the sawmill business for a 
period of 28 years, and is well known to the 
citizens of this county. 

Captain McKinney was born in Detroit, 
Michigan, June 28, 1836, and is a son of Ira 
and Elizabeth (Somerville) McKinney. His 
father was born in Orange county. New York, 
December 27, 1804, and was reared on a farm. 
He worked on the home farm until he arrived 
at his majority, then went to New York City 
and engaged in mercantile business. He later 
engaged in the grocery business there, and took 
an active part in politics, being a stanch \Miig. 
His connection with politics led to the ruin of 
his business, although he was not a seeker for 
ofifice himself. About 1834, he removed to De- 
troit and went to work in a sawmill, continuing 
there until 1850, in which year he came to Bay 
City. He formed a partnership with C. L. 
Russell, of Cleveland. Ohio, under the firm 



name of Russell & ^IcKinney, and engaged in 
the sawmill business, their mill being located 
on Fremont avenue. They continued actively 
in the business until i860, when the mill was 
rented to John Y. ^McKinney, our subject. In 
1 858 Ira McKinney bought of the government 
a farm of 40 acres on the west side of what is 
now Michigan avenue, opposite the present 
home of our subject. He carried on general 
farming and lived on this property until his 
death on April 4, 1888. Politically he was first 
a Whig and in after years a Republican. Jan- 
uary 15, 1827, he was joined in marriage with 
Elizabeth Somerville, who was born in Ire- 
land May 10, 1 80 1, and was the youngest of 
18 children born to her parents. She came to 
America with two brothers and was married 
to Mr. McKinney in New York City. They 
were parents of the following children : Sarah 
Jane, born December 5, 1827, and deceased 
October 12, 1878, who was the wife of Hum- 
phrey Owen, a prominent lumberman of De- 
troit; James Renwick, born January 17, 1830, 
deceased August 30, 1848; Lucinda, born De- 
cember I, 1832, who was first married to 
Charles Wilber, and later to Clark Johnson, of 
Bay City, — she is now a widow and resides in 
St. Paul, Minneapolis ; Mary Ellen, born March 
12, 1834, who married Henry N. Eastman, 
December 22, 1850, and is now a widow resid- 
ing in Des Moines, Iowa : John Y.. our subject ; 
William, who was born and died on January 
16, 1840; and Eliza, born June i, 1843, who is 
the wife of Daniel Campbell, of Denver, Col- 
orado. ]\Irs. ]\IcKinney died October 2. 1865, 
aged 64 years. She and her husband were 
members of the Universalist Church. 

John Y. McKinney attended the public 
schools of Detroit and Bay City, and during his 
boyhood days worked in his father's mill. In 
i860, he rented this mill and conducted it until 
1861. when it was destroyed by an explosion. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



609 



He then placed in operation the first circular- 
saw sawmill on the Saginaw River. On July 
3, 1862, he enlisted in Company F, 23rd Reg.. 
Michigan Vol. Inf., and served with the regi- 
ment throughout the Civil War. He 
went out as a lieutenant and in 1864 
was promoted to a captaincy. He was hon- 
orably discharged in 1865 and returned to Bay 
City, where he became foreman of a sawmill. 
He continued identified with sawmills until 
1893, and in that time accumulated quite an 
estate, which included six stores, a skating rink 
and a fine residence. He then purchased I73^ 
acres of land in Portsmouth township, adjoin- 
ing Bay City, and has a fine truck garden, or- 
chard and vineyard. He has 200 grape vines, 
and an orchard of 400 trees, comprised of 
peach, pear, plum, cherry and apple. He is a 
man of energy* and enterprise and has met 
with deserved success. 

On February 13, 1872, INIr. McKinney was 
united in marriage with Harriet Hudson, a 
daughter of John R. Hudson, of Grand Lodge, 
Michigan. She was born in St. Lawrence 
County, New York. To them were born the 
following children : John H., was born June 29, 
1874, who is identified with the Northern Pa- 
cific Railroad, and lives at Superior, Wiscon- 
sin ; Ira H., born August 25, 1876, who is a 
chemist in the employ of the Marine City Sugar 
Company, of Marine City. Michigan; Nellie, 
born March 28. 1878. deceased, who was the 
wife of Van Rensselaer B. Gark of ^letamora, 
by whom she had two children, John McKinney 
and Helen Gark McKinney, the latter having 
been adopted by our subject: and Mary, born 
December 25, 1879. who is a teacher in the 
Bay City public schools. Religiousl\-. Mr. 
McKinney and Jiis family belong to the Fre- 
mont .\venue Methodist Episcopal Church, of 
which he was trustee for many years. He re- 
sides with his familv in a comfortable seven- 



room home, which he built at the time of mov- 
ing upon his place in 1893. Politically, he is a 
Republican but has never taken an active part 
in political affairs. 



HARLES NERRETER, a thrifty 
farmer, whose farm is situated in 
section 35. Fraser township, was 
Ijorn at Clio, Saginaw County, Mich- 
igan, May 12, 1869. He is a son of John and 
Minnie (Myser) Nerreter, who came from 
Germany, where they were married, before the 
Civil War. The father enlisted for service in 
that war in a Michigan infantry regiment. He 
engaged in farming and lumbering at the close 
of the war. He died about 18S6. when 64 years 
old. His W'idow is still living, aged about 75 
years. 

Charles Nerreter is the fourth of nine chil- 
dren born to his parents. He received his early 



mental 



trammg 



in Saginaw, and after his 



school days worked at farming and on the river. 
For 16 years he was employed as an engineer 
on lake steamers, and for the last nine years 
of that period worked for Bigelow Brothers, of 
Chicago. He bought his farm in Fraser town- 
ship, which consists of 80 acres, in March, 
1902. 

On January 2. 1896. Mr. Nerreter was mar- 
ried to Carrie Watkins, a native of Pennsyl- 
vania, a daughter of Homer and Sarepta (Gil- 
more) Watkins. Homer Watkins was born in 
W^est Bloomfield, Ontario County, New York, 
on July 26, 1825. His father, Lewis Watkins. 
was born November 27, 1789, in Connecticut, 
and removed to Western New York when quite 
voung. He learned the shoemaker's trade, and 
carried on a shop in the then village of Buffalo, 
where he was living before the War of 18 12. 
He afterward moved to Black Rock, then a 



6io 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



separate village but now a part of the city of 
Buffalo, and had a shop there. On January 28, 
j8iS, he married Philena Rew, a native of East 
Bloomfield, New York. Her father, Lot Rew, 
was one of the first settlers of East Bloomfield, 
having moved there from Connecticut. Homer 
Watkins' mother died in Bloomfield. October 
13, 1831. In 1832 his father came to Michi- 
gan, and bought 80 acres of land in the town of 
Farmington, Oakland County. 

Sarepta (Gilmore) Watkins, Mrs. Nerre- 
ter's mother, was a daughter of Oliver and 
Tyla (Wilson) Gilmore, who were natives of 
New York State, where Mrs. Watkins was 
born. Her grandfather, John Gilmore, was a 
soldier in the Revolutionary War, and lived 
many years in Chautauqua County, New York. 

Mr. and Mrs. Nerreter have reared five 
children, namely: Ferris Watkins, horn No- 
vember 5, 1896; Ferolene Beatrice, born Oc- 
tober 18, 1898: Charles Harris, Jr., l)orn No- 
vemljer 3, 1900: and Ruth and Helen (twins), 
born December 5, 1903. Politically, Mr. Ner- 
reter is a Republican. Fraternally, he is a Ma- 
son. His religious views are non-sectarian. 




YMAN RIVKIN, who is a successful 
general merchant at Linwood, Bay 
County, Michigan, was born in 1851 
at Mogelem, Russia, his parents be- 
ing natives of that place. 

Mr. Rivkin lost his father when he was a 
child of nine years. His mother was dependent 
upon her son's support, and as soon as 
he had completed his education, in the com- 
mon schools of his native village, he be- 
gan to teach, and continued in the edu- 
cational field for 21 years. In 1890 he 
decided to emigrate to America, his one 



regret being that his mother could not ac- 
company him. She died one year later. When 
Mr. Rivkin reached West Bay City, Michigan, 
his capital was exhausted and he was obliged to 
work from the bottom in building up a busi- 
ness. His family joined him one year later 
ailM Mr. Rivkin attributes much of his success 
to the advice and assistance of his capable wife. 
He engaged in a dry goods business at West 
Bay City for about 18 months and then located 
at Linwood where he has remained ever since, 
building up here a business second to none in 
the locality. He carries a large and varied 
stock of seasonable goods, giving his patrons 
careful and courteous attention and sells at the 
lowest prices. 

In 1870 Mr. Rivkin was married to Lottie 
Chwerbilou, who was born in his native place. 
Their children were born in Russia and accom- 
panied the mother to America in 1891. They 
are as follows: Jacob, born in 1871, who is 
engaged in a junk business at Buffalo, New 
York; Lena, born in 1873, who is the wife of 
A. Cohen, who was born in Russia: Samuel, 
born in 1875, who is a general merchant at 
Omer, ■Michigan: Annie, born in 1877, who 
married Benjamin Terris, a native of Russia, 
and resides in Detroit: Ida, born in 1884, who 
on April 6, 1905, was married to Julius Rosen- 
berg, a native of Russia, now a resident of 
Alpena, Michigan: and Lillian, born in 1887, 
who resides at home. In addition to this fam- 
ily of affectionate children, all of whom are 
doing well, Mr. Rivkin has 11 grandchildren, 
as follows : Bluma and Morris, JacolVs chil- 
dren ; Sylvia, Florence, William and Pearl, 
Lena's children : Fivus, Freda and Marcus, 
Samuel's children : and Zimka and Eveline. 
Annie's children. When there is a family re- 
union, joy abounds, for all are closely united in 
affection. Mr. and Mrs. Rivkin have worked 




JAMES H. POTTER 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



613 



hard and are now al)le to enjoy the fruits of 
their in(histry' and economy. They are very 
lii,<,dily respected by the residents of Linwood. 
Poh'licallv Mr. Rivkin is a Repubhcan, but 
he is no seeker for otifice, his time and attention 
lieing aI)sorl5ed in his business, his family and 
liis pleasant social connections. He is a member 
of the Maccabees. The family is Jewish in re- 
ligious belief. 




A^IES H. POTTER, one of the repre- 
sentative citizens of Portsmouth town- 
ship, Bay County, Michigan, who re- 
sides on his fine farm of 137 acres 
in section 34, township 14, range 5, was born 
in Surrey County, England, within 20 miles 
of London, on April 24, 1844, and is a son of 
James and Sarah (Adams) Potter, an old 
English family. 

Our subject is the sixth member of a 
family of 13 children and, with the exception 
of his late brother William, the only member 
of the family to come to Michigan. In 1856 
he went to Brighton, England, and found em- 
ployment in that fashionable seaside city, re- 
maining there until 1870, when he emigrated 
to .\merica. Prior to this he had been em- 
ployed by the great contracting firm of John 
Aird & Sons and assisted in the construction 
of the great gas works at Bromley, Kent ; spent 
four years assisting in the construction of the 
Millwall docks ; spent two years at Hampton 
assisting in the construction of the Vauxhall 
water-works ; helped build the Charter gas 
works at Barkin on the Thames, and was 
employed in much railroad building in and 
around the city of London. 

On April 7, 1870, Mr. Potter left Liver- 
pool for Portland, Maine, and during the next 
three months visited many parts of Canada and 

83 



New York, and worked a short time in a brick- 
yard near Rochester. In July he reached the 
Saginaw Valley and found employment in the 
construction of the Michigan Central Railroad 
for a few months and then turned his attention 
to lumbering, working first in a sawmill and 
then in a lumber camp in the woods. He then 
went to California and while there bored a 
number of artesian wells in the San Francisco 
Valley. Finally he returned to the Saginaw 
Valley and worked for the leading companies 
in various capacities in the lumber region for 
16 years, 14 of these in the woods. 

When Mr. Potter decided to settle down 
permanently, his knowledge of values served 
him well and his selection of land proved most 
fortunate. The tract he secured was entirely 
unimproved, but Mr. Potter soon placed it 
under cultivation. He was obliged to cut a 
road through to his property and to make a 
number of public improvements on his own 
account, all of which tended to make his farm 
more valuable. As soon as practicable he built 
a substantial residence and commodious barn 
and outbuildings, to which he has added as 
necessity has demanded. In 1900 he added to 
his holdings by the purchase of 97 additional 
acres adjoining his original 40-acre tract, his 
land being situated in section 34. For the past 
1 6 years he has operated a first-class dairy, his 
place bearing the name, — "Alderney Dairy 
Farm." He has made a specialty of sugar beets 
and has devoted 20 acres to them. Few men 
have had a wider experience in \-arious lines 
than has Mr. Potter and few have been more 
successful in what they have undertaken. 

Mr. Potter was married first, in England, 
in 1866, to Hannah Chipperfield. who remained 
in England until 1873, when she joined Mr. 
Potter. She died in 1893, without issue. In 
1895 Mr. Potter was married to Nancy Richter, 
who was bom in 1862, in Ontario, Canada, 



6i4 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and they have four interesting children : Jennie, 
Ralph, Frances and Granwell. A portrait of 
]\Ir. Potter accompanies this sketch. - 




IIRISTIAX APPOLD, who owns a 
fine farm bordering on the Saginaw 
River, consisting of 120 acres in 
sections 5, 6 and 7. township 13, 
range 5. in Frankenlust township, was born on 
this farm December 17, 1861, and is a son of 
John C. and Barbara (Arnold) Appold. 

The parents of Mr. Appold were both born 
at Bayern, Germany, the father on August 9, 
1826, and the mother on June 21, 1824. John 
C. Appold died on his farm in Frankenlust 
township, April 9. 1903. one of the most highly 
valued men of the southern section of Bay 
County, one who for years had directed every 
energy to the development of this section and 
who had been more than usually honored by his 
fellow-citizens. He came to America and di- 
rectly to Bay County in 1852. For some four 
years he worked at the carpenter trade in Lower 
Saginaw, by which name Bay City was at that 
time known, and then bought 30 acres in Frank- 
enlust township, now included in our subject's 
farm. At that time the land was still covered 
with its virgin growth of timber. He started 
in at once to clear and put the property under 
cultivation, and for a while lived in a little 
shanty where housekeeping was carried on in a 
primitive way. He w-as a man not only of in- 
dustry and determination, but also of business 
foresight. He soon erected a sawmill and then 
operated it for 12 years, being succeeded by 
Schaller & Stevens. He subsequently bought 
over 300 acres of pine lands in Frankenlust 
township, and at his death left an improved 
farm of 130 acres. 



Politically John C. Appold was in perfect 
accord with the Republican party and in the 
early days was one of the only three members 
of this party in the township. During a period 
of 12 years he served as a delegate to every 
convention. With the greatest honesty and 
efficiency he served in the office of highway 
commissioner, drainage commissioner, path- 
master, school inspector, for 25 years was 
school moderator and for a long time was a jus- 
tice of the peace. He was always among the 
foremost to urge improvements of a public 
character in the township, while at the same 
time he was a careful guardian of the public 
funds. When the project was advanced con- 
cerning the building of the first German Lu- 
theran Church in the township, he was one of 
the handful of earnest men who were ready to 
insure its completion. Before coming to Amer- 
ica he had loyally served his own country for 
six years in the army. 

The mother of our subject was Barbara 
Arnold, who came to America on the same 
vessel that brought Mr. Appold across the 
ocean. They were married at Bay Cit}- one 
year later. She died here on the homestead in 
Frankenlust township, December i, 1890, the 
mother of seven children : Michael, of Franken- 
lust township ; John Jacob, of Monitor town- 
ship ; Mary Barbara, of Frankenlust township ; 
George, of Williams township; Christian, of 
this sketch ; Fred, of Frankenlust township ; and 
Leonard, of Huron County. 

Our subject has always resided on the old 
home farm which he operates as a grain and 
stock farm. He has, like his late father, always 
been identified with county politics and is usu- 
ally selected as a delegate to the Republican 
county conventions, but has refused to accept 
office. He has also been very active in the 
affairs of St. Paul's German Lutheran Church 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



615 



at Frankenlust and is a memlier of tlie build- 
ing committee wliicii is now putting up a fine 
new edifice. 

On November 31, 1889. Mr. Appold mar- 
ried Anna Xeumeyer, wlio was born August 
15, 1866, at Salzburg, Bay County, and is a 
daughter of Martin and Mary (Schwap) Neu- 
meyer, natives of Germany and pioneers of this 
county. They have six children : George J., 
Benjamin, Jacob. Christina. Carl and Chris- 
tian, Jr. 

— — < « » 




OHN H. SHARPE. one of the prom- 
inent men of Bay County, who resides 
on his well-cultivated farm of 20 
acres, situated in section 17, Hampton 
township, has been identified with public af- 
fairs and educational progress in this locality 
for the past 30 years. Mr. Sharpe was born 
September 3, 1849. "^^^ Kingston. Ontario, 
Canada, and is a son of Andrew and Delila 
(Kronke) Sharpe. 

The Sharpe ancestry is traced to James P. 
Sharpe, Archbishop of Sterling, who suffered 
death in the time of Charles II of England. 
Lawrence Sharpe, the paternal grandfather of 
our subject, was born in Perthshire, Scotland, 
and came to America at a very early day, set- 
tling in the State of New York in Revolu- 
tionary times. 

Andrew- Sharpe was born near Oswego, 
New' York and was 1 5 years old when the fam- 
ily removed to Canada, where it remained 
through his life. Andrew Sharpe took part in 
the iMcKinzie Rebellion in 1837. His occupa- 
tion was farming. His death took place at the 
age of 73 years. The Sharpe family was rep- 
resented by several members in the military 
operations of the War of 1812. The mother of 
our subject was hnrn in Ontario, Canada, where 
she died at the age of 67 years. The family 



consisted of nine children, three of these being 
sons. 

Our subject was 15 years old when he left 
the home farm and entered Prince Albert Col- 
lege, at Belleville, Canada, where he enjoyed 
three years of collegiate training. Then he 
crossed the border and resided at W^atertown, 
New York, working at various callings for 
some two years, and then came West to Mich- 
igan, becoming bookkeeper for a large woolen 
mill at Flint. After 18 months at Flint he 
went to Hawley and later to Lapeer, and 
finally, in 1873, settled in Bay County. This 
section of the State has been his chosen home 
ever since and he has resided for the past 26 
years upon his present compact little farm, 
which is noted for its fertility, and is mainly 
devoted to fine gardening and fruit-growing. 

Mr. Sharpe has been one of the most vigor- 
ous promoters of education in this section of 
Bay County. After locating here, he taught 
country schools for three years and then w-as 
principal of the Essexville School for one year; 
later he became principal of the Sterling School 
and taught also at other points. His services 
were valued and he was made county school 
examiner and for six years was secretary of the 
local School Board and for two years held 
other official positions. 

Mr. Sharpe is now identified with the Dem- 
ocratic party and has been honored by the party 
on numerous occasions. He served one term 
as township clerk and for the past 20 years 
has been a justice of the peace. 

In 1873 Mr. Sharpe was united in mar- 
riage with Mary Dillon, who was born near 
London. Ontario. Canada, August 17, 1853, 
and is a daughter of John and Johanna Dillon, 
natives of Ireland. They have had nine chil- 
dren : Harold, of Everett, Washington ; Carl 
S., of Seattle. Washington: Agnes M., wife of 
F. P. Sawyer, of Everett, W^ashington ; John 



6i6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



who died aged 17 years; and Lawrence. \'er- 
non, Edward M., Mary and Thomas R.. who 
Hve at home. 

Air. Sharpe's fraternal associations are with 
the St. Andrew's Society and other Scottish 
clans. As one of the representative men of 
this section, Mr. Sharpe exerts a wide influ- 
ence and is probably as well-known as any 
other agriculturist in Bay County. 




HESLEY WHEELER, one of the 
oldest and most prominent citizens of 
Bay City, is a retired ship-builder, 
who was born in Warren County, 
New York, June 17, 1823, and is a son of 
George and Sally (Padden) Wheeler. 

George Wheeler was born in Eastern New 
York, and devoted his entire life to farming. 
He was a soldier in the War of 1812, and was 
stationed at Sackett's Harbor. There the 
United States government had built a large ves- 
sel for war purposes, which, peace having been 
declared, was never launched. The subject of 
this sketch well remembers going over this ves- 
sel, after it had lieen housed in and placed on 
exhibition. The father died in 1831 in Jeffer- 
son County, New York. His death was the 
result of diseases caused by over exertion, and 
the exposure incident to frontier life. 

Chesley Wheeler's mother had six sons and 
four daughters, of whom he and three sisters 
are the only survivors. Of these, Mrs. Mary 
Ann Eaton, who is next older than he. lives in 
St. Louis, Michigan. Another, Mrs. Emma 
Williams, lives in Columbus, Pennsylvania. 
The third sister. Mrs. Melissa Casselman. re- 
sides in Chautauqua County. New York. The 
mother of this family was a native of New 
York, but of Scotch extraction. In religious 
faith, she was a Presbyterian. 



Chesley Wheeler grew up in Jefferson 
County, New York, where he receixed his men- 
tal training and where he was married. Before 
and after his marriage, he was engaged in 
farming. Subsequent to that event, he learned 
the trade of ship carpenter, which he followed 
until within the last few years. Before com- 
ing to Bay County, he built a few small ves- 
sels on contract. 

Mr. Wheeler arrived in Saginaw, ]\Iichi- 
gan, in the fall of 1865 and started a ship- 
yard there. Eight years afterward he moved 
to West Bay City, where he started another 
shipyard, having discontinued the one at Sag- 
inaw. He remained in West Bay Cif)' until 
about 1878, when his son, Frank Willis 
Wheeler, who up to that time had been in part- 
nership with his father, became sole owner of 
the yard. 

The "Elfin Mere" was the property of 
Chesley Wheeler, and was operated by him as 
a freight steamer until 1901, when the boat was 
destroyed by fire. Mr. Wheeler gave employ- 
ment at times to a force numbering from 300 
to 400 men. 

On February 14, 1843. M^. Wheeler mar- 
ried Eliza Hoselton. of Jefferson County, New- 
York. They had five children, four of whom 
grew to maturity, as follows: Jane L., wife of 
William Durand, of Bay City; Fred D., de- 
ceased ; Emma, wife of John R. Goodfellow, of 
Los Angeles, California; and Frank ^\'illis. 
The mother of this family died December 12, 
1 89 1, aged 65 years. She was a member of the 
Congregational Church. 

Mr. Wheeler subsequently married Airs. 
Chauncey Greenman, iicc Imogene Thurber, a 
daughter of Noah Thurber. of Penn Yan, New 
York. She is a member of the Presbyterian 
Church. 

Cheslev Wheeler is a Republican in politics. 
In West Bav City he was quite active politi- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



617 



cally, and exercised a powerful influence in 
public affairs, although he was absorbed in 
business to such an extent as to preclude the 
idea of holding office. Fraternally, he is a 
member of Joppa Lodge, No. 315, F. & A. M. 

Hon. Fr.\nk Willis Wheeler was born 
March 2, 1853, and received his mental train- 
ing in the public schools of Saginaw. He 
learned the trade of ship carpenter with his 
father, with whom he entered into partnership 
about the time they came to Bay City. In this 
line he continued until the trust bought up the 
shipyards on the Great Lakes. He then went 
to Detroit, where he engaged in business as a 
ship owner. He purchased 200,000 acres of 
timber land in North Carolina, and incorpor- 
ated a company with a capital of $1,000,000, 
Frank W'illis W'heeler married Eva Arm- 
strong, of Saginaw, and they have one daugh- 
ter, Mary, who is the wife of George Clark, of 
Detroit. Mr. Wheeler, like his father, is a 
Republican in politics. He w-as elected to Con- 
gress in 1888 from this district. Fraternally, 
he belongs to Joppa Lodge, No. 315, F. & 
A. M. 




LLlAAl REID, manager of the 
L'nion Ice Company, at Bay City, 
Michigan, was born in Perthshire, 
Scotland, March 30, 1850. and is a 
son of John and Ann (Morrison) Reid. 

John Reid was a native of Perthshire. In 
1850 he left his native land and settled in 
Huron District. Ontario. Canada, where he en- 
gaged in agricultural pursuits until the close 
of his life, in 1900. at the age of 74 years. 

Our subject was reared in Canada and ob- 
tained his education in the public schools. In 
1870 he came to Bay City and spent five sea- 
sons in the lumber regions. He then secured 



the position of gang sawyer and continued in 
that work for some 10 years, after which he 
operated a salt-block for a like period and for 
the same company, and cleared the mill of lum- 
ber and refuse. During this time he was also 
engaged in farming, carrying on extensive 
operations for some nine years on the Watson 
farm, which he had rented. He raised wheat, 
oats and hay and had 20 head of stock, mainly 
horses. Mr. Reid then returned to lumber- 
ing during the winter seasons, working for 
Butman & Rusk, his former employers, having 
been two years engaged in clearing E. Y. 
Williams' mill. In his lumbering operations he 
was associated with John Redy, the firm style 
being Reid & Redy. and the partnership con- 
tinued for two years. In 1893 ^^^- Reid lx)ught 
the wood business of Smalley & Woodruft". ad- 
mitted Samuel Mapes to a partnership and the 
business was conducted under the firm name of 
Mapes & Reid, for six years. Then W. H. 
Reed bought the partner's interest, and the 
firm became Reid & Reed, one year later our 
subject becoming the sole ow-ner. 

When the Union Ice Company was organ- 
ized in 1899. Mr. Reid became its manager and 
it is the oldest and best equipped ice concern in 
the city, doing the major part of the ice busi- 
ness. The company cuts its own ice, consist- 
ing of about 35,000 tons annually, and sells 
both wholesale and retail. H. H. Aplin is pres- 
ident and Robert Beutel is secretary and treas- 
urer of this company, both being well-known 
capitalists. 

Mr. Reid married Jessie Foote, who is a 
daughter of John Foote. of Huron District, 
Ontaria, Canada, and they have four children : 
James L., Mabel May. William H. and Jessie 
T. The family belong to the Memorial Pres- 
byterian Church, in which Mr. Reid has been a 
trustee for about 10 years. 

Politically he is a stanch Republican and 



6iS 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



has served two terms as alderman from the 
Fifth \\'ard. His fraternal ties include mem- 
bership with the Maccabees and with Bay City 
Lodge, No. 129, F. & A. yi. 




ILLIAM GEORGE KELLY, M. D.. 
C. M., a well-known physician of 
Bay City, was born at Kingston, 
Ontario, February 5, 1874. He is 
a son of Isaac and Susan (Faucett) Kelly, and 
a grandson of William and Mary Kelly. Will- 
iam Kelly, the grandfather, came from the 
North of Ireland and settled in Kingston, where 
he followed the trade of a carpenter. 

Isaac Kelly was born at Kingston, Ontario, 
March 17, 1847. When a boy he learned the 
trade of a pattern maker, which occupation he 
followed until the very day of his death,— 
August 5, 1904. He was a stanch Liberal. 
During the Fenian raid, he did military duty 
and received a grant of land for his services. 
He was an active member of the Presbyterian 
Church, in which he officiated as an elder. Fra- 
ternally, he belonged to the A. O. U. W. The 
wife of Isaac Kelly was born in Ireland and 
landed in Canada, after a three months' voyage, 
when she was about seven years of age. She is 
now 55 years old, and is in the enjoyment of ex- 
cellent health. In religious faith she is a Pres- 
bvterian, and a consistent member of the 
church. Isaac Kelly and his wife had four chil- 
dren, namely: Henry J., who lives in St. Louis, 
Missouri: William George: Isaac John, of To- 
ledo, Ohio : and Nettie Louise. 

The subject of this sketch received his early 
mental training in the public schools of Kings- 
ton, and afterward entered the medical depart- 
ment of the Queen's L^niversity in that city, 
where he was graduated in 1897 with the de- 
grees before mentioned. In the same year lie 



came to Bay City, an utter stranger, and since 
then has built up an extended and successful 
practice. 

Doctor Kelly married Florence Ethel Lan- 
deryon, a daughter of John C. Landeryon, of 
Kingston, Ontario, and they have one daugh- 
ter, — Dorothy May. The Doctor is a member 
of the Presbyterian Church. Professionally, he 
belongs to the Michigan State Medical Society, 
and the Bay County jMedical Society. Fra- 
ternally, he is a member of Bay City Lodge, 
No. 129, F. & A. M., of which he is senior 
warden ; Blanchard Chapter, No. 59, R. A. M., 
and Bay City Commandery, No. 26, K. T. In 
politics, the Doctor is a Republican. 



,m 



AMUEL F. WAIT, a prominent citizen 
and postmaster of Auburn, in Will- 
iams township, was born September 
12, 1852, at Ogdensburg, New York. 
He is a son of Ebenezer and Caroline (Pierce) 
Walt, and is a descendant of Thomas Wayte, 
who was one of the signers of the death war- 
rant of King Charles I, of England. 

Ebenezer Wait was a native of New York 
State, and was one of several children born to 
his parents, among them being: Calvin, a 
farmer and real estate dealer who died and was 
buried at Malone, New York: and Lucy, wife 
of Daniel O. Files, of St. Regis Falls, New 
York. Ebenezer Wait became a machinist and 
engineer on lake boats, and was the first to 
put a walking beam on a propeller, putting it 
on the "B. F. Wade." He went to Chicago and 
for several years worked for Savage Brothers, 
machinists, and later was manager of a large 
sugar refinery in that city. In 1891, he retired 
from business and came to Bay County to live 
with our subject, dying here November 23, 
1902. He was buried in Pine Grove Ceme- 
terv in Williams township. He married Caro- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



619 



line Pierce, a native of New Plampshire and a 
daugliter of Daniel Pierce, and they became 
parents of tliree children : Daniel Edward, of 
Chicago, who was an engineer on the Great 
Lakes and was drowned, it is thought, in the 
sinking of the steamship "Oconto ;" Charles, a 
farmer of Tuscola County, Michigan ; and 
Samuel F. 

Samuel F. Wait was seven years of age 
when his mother died and thereafter shifted 
for himself. At the age of 10 years, Thomas 
Wolverton, a shipbuilder, saw and was at- 
tracted to the boy and persuaded the latter to go 
with him to his farm on the St. Clair River. 
There Samuel attended the district school at 
Robertson Landing, working before and after 
school hours on the farm. The farm was sold 
two years and a half after, and he accompan- 
ied the family of his benefactor to Belle River 
Mills, Michigan, where he worked on a farm 
for a daughter of Mr. Wolverton. In Septem- 
ber of the same year he moved with this fam- 
ily to what was then Portsmouth, now South 
Bay City, and attended school that winter, be- 
ing then 14 years old. The following spring he 
went to work in Watrous Brothers' shingle- 
mill. He attended school in Portsmouth 
whenever he could until he was ig. 
He worked in the lumber camps during 
the winter months and was scaler for 
Watrous Brothers until he was 24 years old. 
He then accompanied Mr. Wolverton to a farm 
of 134 acres in section 19, Monitor township, 
which the latter had purchased, and for six 
years worked at clearing and cultivating the 
land. He purchased 40 acres of this tract and 
engaged in farming it, in the meantime con- 
tinuing to live with Mr. Wolverton, whose 
house and barn he helped to build. At the end 
of six years he left the home of that gentle- 
man and became clerk for Ira E. Swart in the 
iatter's furnishing store at Auburn, continu- 



ing 12 years, serving as deputy postmaster to 
Mr. Swart for the same period. 

After leaving the employ of Mr. Swart, 
Mr. Wait engaged in the grocery business for 
himself one year, then returned to his farm and 
remained until he was appointed postmaster of 
Auburn. July 29, 1897. He took charge on 
September 15 of that year jind has since served 
most creditably in that capacity. He has been 
unswerving in his support of the Republican 
party, and has held numerous township offices. 
He was elected township clerk in 1883 and 
served 12 years in the office and a like period 
on the School Board. He is progressive and 
public-spirited and it was largely through his 
efforts that the Town Hall was built in 1894. 
He was also instrumental in securing the new, 
modern school at Auburn. The business of the 
Auburn post office has been more than doubled 
under his administration, and there are now 
three rural delivery routes running from his 
office. He has served 20 years as a notary 
public. 

On January 28, 1884, ]\Ir. Wait was joined 
in marriage with Mary A. Hershey, who was 
born in Ritchfield, Ohio, and is a daughter of 
Abraham and Mary (Shoemaker) Hershey of 
Bath, Ohio. She is one of seven children, as 
follows: Samuel J., a farmer and wholesale 
butcher of Williams township: Irving B.. an 
attorney of Cleveland, Ohio; Elmer G., a 
farmer and wholesale butcher of Williams 
township; Mary A., wife of our subject; Ma- 
tilda, wife of Linus W. Oviatt. supervisor of 
Williams township, a stock breeder and State 
speaker for the Farmer's Institute ; Ella M., 
wife of George R. Beattie, a farmer and whole- 
sale butcher of Williams township ; and Sarah 
J., widow of T. D. Oviatt, who was a lawyer 
of Warren, Ohio. Mr. and ]\Irs. Wait have 
five children: Iva Glenn. Ralph H., Clyde F., 
Charles F. and Mvron R. Fraternallv, our sub- 



620 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



ject has been a member of tlie Independent Or- 
der of Foresters since March 12, 1891, has 
fiUed the offices of financial secretary and court 
deputy and is now treasurer of Court Auburn, 
No. 758. Rehgiously, he is a memljer of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. 




EORGE A. NUFFER, one of the en- 
terprising business men of Amelith, 
I-'rankenlust township, who controls 
a number of successful enterprises 
and industries here, was born March 30, 1872, 
at Amelith, Bay County, Michigan, and is a 
son of William and Mary (Kranzlein) Nuffer. 

The parents of Mr. Nufifer were born in 
Germany, but came to America before mar- 
riage. William Nuffer came to Bay County 
in i860, and died at the age of 38 years. The 
mother of our subject lived to be 58 years of 
age. They had six children : Margaret, wife 
of Michael Uhlrich, of Saginaw; Barbara, de- 
ceased, who was the wife of Adolph Wirth ; 
John M., of Auburn; William, deceased; 
George A. ; and Henry, of Frankenlust town- 
ship. Mrs. Nufifer married again after her 
husband's decease, and reared eight more 
children. 

Until he was 14 years old Mr. Nuffer at- 
tended German and American schools, and then 
devoted hiinself to assisting on his father's 
farm until he embarked in the general mercan- 
tile and cheese business some 12 years ago. This 
venture was joined in by his brother and the 
firm name was Nuffer Brothers, and the busi- 
ness continued until last fall when it was dis- 
solved. John M. Nuffer took the cheese fac- 
tory and store, used in their joint business, to 
Auburn where the output of his cheese factory 
is about 8,000 pounds a day. The one our sub- 
ject conducts on his place at Amelith turns out 



5,000 pounds a day, the quality being su- 
perior and meeting with ready sale. Mr. Nuffer 
has an acre of land on which all his plants are 
located, — cheese factory, cider mill and store 
building. The last named building is 30 by 46 
feet in dimensions and is well stocked with 
seasonable goods. He also deals in farm im- 
plements. These buildings were all put up by 
our subject and his brother, with the exception 
of the cheese factory, and are in section 15, 
Frankenlust township. 

Mr. Nuffer was married February 16, 
1896, to Maggie Bauer, who was born in 
Frankenlust township. Bay County, and is a 
daughter of George Bauer who was born in 
Germany. Mr. and Mrs. Nuffer have three 
l)right, interesting children : Adolph, John and 
Eleanor. 

Mr. Xuffer is a Republican and has fre- 
quently been put forward by his party for re- 
sponsible offices, being a man well-qualified for 
the same. He is one of the leading members 
of St. John's German Lutheran Church at 
Amelith and a liberal supporter of its enter- 
prises. 




OHN ANDREW FEINAUER, one of 
the representative citizens of Monitor 
township, and the owner of a well- 
inipro\e(l farm of 80 acres, situated 
in section 29, was born February 29, 1856, at 
Bay City, and is a son of those well-known 
pioneers, John M. and Margaret B. (Sex- 
linger) Feinauer. 

John M. owned a farm in Ba\'aria, 
Germany, but felt that he could do better 
in the United States and, with two sisters, 
took passage in a sailing vessel in 1846. The 
ship was almost wrecked and its supplies ran 
out before land was reached, and this three 
months of danger was never forgotten by those 




NELSON NELLES 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



523 



who endured it. The party came directly to 
Bay City, Micliigan, by way of Buffalo. Two 
years later Margaret B. Sexlinger came to Bay 
City, and soon after her arrival she and Mr. 
Feinauer were married. Our subject's father 
easily secured work as sawyer and millwright 
and the ruins of the first mill in which he 
worked, dismantled some two years ago, can 
still be seen in Bay City. He subsequently pur- 
chased a tract of 80 acres of land, where the 
Michigan coal mine was recently opened, tak- 
ing charge in the fall of 1856. About three 
years later he added 40 acres to the original 
purchase and continued to operate this farm of 
120 acres until 1898, when he retired and went 
to live with his son, John C. Feinauer, in Mon- 
itor township. Here he died in March, 1900, a 
man respected by all who knew him. He was 
a stanch supporter of the principles of the Re- 
publican party and was frequently selected for 
responsible offices. For seven years he served 
as a justice of the peace and was also elected 
township treasurer and highway commissioner. 
His aged widow still survives and is an honored 
and beloved member of the household of her 
youngest daughter, who lives in Frankenlust 
township. 

Our subject is the second member of the 
family of 10 children bom to his parents, the 
others being: John G., of Frankenlust town- 
ship; George M. and John C, both of Monitor 
township : John Leonard, deceased ; Christina 
B., wife of A. Schwab; Louisa W., wife of 
Charles F. Engelhardt, of Hampton township ; 
Mary B., wife of F. Smith, of Monitor town- 
ship; .\nna M., wife of George Richard; and 
Mary M., wife of John Lutz, of Frankenlust 
township. 

After completing his education, our subject 
worked for his father for four years and then 
learned the milling trade and later that of 
l)utchering, and followed the latter for three 



\'ears pri(.)r to settling on his farm of 80 acres, 
which he had bought in 1877. At that time it 
was in its native state, all covered with forest 
and brush. He did all the clearing himself and 
made use of the fine timber in building his own 
handsome residence and large barn. Mr. 
Feinauer has an exceptionally fine house which 
he built in 1899 at a cost, for construction, of 
$r,200. He carries on general farming and 
stock-raising, his land being well adapted to 
l:oth industries. 

John A. Feinauer was married on Septem- 
ber 3, 1879, to Margaret E. Schmitt, who is a 
daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth (Webl>er) 
Schmitt, and they have had seven children ; 
Christina B.. who died aged 18 years; Lizzie 
L. W., who is the wife of Leonard Uhlman, of 
Garfield township; John F.. of Monitor town- 
ship; Annie M., wife of Charles Geiser; and 
George M., Minnie W. and Martilla M., the 
last three living at home. The family belong 
to the German Lutheran Church, of which Mr. 
Feinauer has been a trustee for six years. In 
politics he is a Republican and is moderator of 
the School Board, a position he has held for 
three years past. 




ELSON NELLES. For many years 
the late Nelson Nelles, whose portrait 
is shown on the opposite page, was 
one of Bay City's prominent and suc- 
cessful business men, closely identified with her 
lumber interests. Mr. Nelles was born March 
2. 1830, in York, Canada, and died at Bay 
City, April 22, 1901. He was a son of Col. 
William and Margaret Sophia (Clements) 
Nelles. 

The family is one of considerable political 
and military distinction in the Dominion of 
Canada, being well represented in the LTpper 



624 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



House of Parliament. The late Colonel Nelles 
was a man of prominence in his locality, a 
magistrate and during the rebellion of 1837- 
38 he was captain of a company there, later 
becoming colonel in the militia. He was a 
member of the Church of England. His wife 
was born at Niagara, Canada, and died in 
York, aged 50 years, and was survived by her 
husband 15 years. They had 11 children and 
10 of these grew to maturity. 

The late Nelson Nelles was reared on his 
father's farm and remained at home until the 
age of 22 years, his education being secured 
in the district schools. His inclinations did 
not lead him to adopt an agricultural life, turn- 
ing rather to business. Several years after he 
had started out for himself, he accepted employ- 
ment in a lumber yard at Vienna, Canada. 
During his residence there he advanced from 
the position of tally-boy to that of manager, 
his employers being a firm, whose headquarters 
were in Albany, New York. Mr. Nelles was 
employed by this firm for five years at Vienna, 
Canada, inspecting and shipping lumber, and 
then he went into the business on his own ac- 
count, and successfully pursued it for the next 
five years. Attracted by the great development 
of the lumber interests at Bay City, he came 
here in 1870. He inspected lumber here for 
a large firm during the first year and shipped 
millions of feet and then went into the business 
for himself, continuing his extensive opera- 
tions. In 1888 he admitted his son, J. Alex- 
ander Nelles, to partnership and they continued 
the business until 1896, when our subject re- 
tired. During his long and successful business 
life he was known for sturdy honesty as well as 
commercial ability, while he had few equals 
in this section as a lumber expert. 

In 1865, Mr. Nelles was married at Shelby, 
Ohio, to Jennie E. Alexander, who was born at 
St. Thomas, Ontario. Mrs. Nelles still sur- 



vives with five children, viz : Margaret, who 
is the wife of Lieut. H. G. Gates, United States 
Navy ; J. Alexander, of North Hampton street, 
Bay City ; Helen E., a graduate of the Bay City 
High School and the University of Michigan, 
who is the wife of L. L. Axford, of Detroit ; 
Frederick N., of Chicago, a civil engineer, 
class of 1900, University of Michigan; and 
Charles A., of Bay City. 

Mr. Nelles always took a prominent part in 
civic life but he neither sought nor held polit- 
ical office. His large business operations made 
him well-known all through this section. 




USSELL WARNER BROWN, 
M. D., physician and surgeon, whose 
office is located at No. 207 North 
Walnut street, Bay City, West Side, 
was born at Summerfield, Monroe County, 
Michigan, March 2^, 1864, and is a son of 
George R. and Mary (Hunter) Brown. 

The father of Dr. Brown was born in Mass- 
achusetts in 1829, and died at Deerfield, Mich- 
igan, September 20, 1904, aged 75 years. He 
came West with his father, Doctor Jonas 
Brown, in boyhood, and spent his whole subse- 
quent life in Michigan, mainly engaged in ag- 
ricultural pursuits. His wife Mary was a 
daughter of Benjamin and Ann Hunter. 

Dr. Brown was educated in the comiuon 
and high schools of Petersburg and Deerfield, 
Michigan, where his parents resided during dif- 
ferent periods of his boyhood and youth, and 
began to read medicine under the careful pre- 
ceptorship of Dr. Dayton Parker, of Blissfield, 
Michigan. He thus prepared for entrance to 
the Michigan College of Medicine at Detroit, 
from which he was creditably graduated in 
1889. After one year of practice at Republic, 
Marquette County, he removed to Meredith, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



625 



Clare County, wlicre he practiced for four 
years and made man_\- friends. In 1894 he 
came to West Bay City, where he has 1jeen in 
practice ever since. He is well equipped natur- 
ally for his noble profession, and he keeps well 
posted concerning its scientific advancement, be- 
longing to both county and State medical or- 
ganizations. 

Dr. Brown was united in marriage with 
Victoria A. Mcintosh, who is a daughter of 
Joseph Mcintosh, a native of Ontario. They 
iiave two children : Mary Evangeline and Fred- 
erick yi. Dr. Brown and wife belong to Grace 
Protestant Episcopal Church, of which he is a 
vestryman. 

For a number of years Dr. Brown has been 
prominent in various fraternal organizations. 
He is a member of Wenona Lodge, No. 296, 
F. & A. M.; Othello Lodge, No. 116, K. P.; 
and Wenona Lodge. No. 221, I. O. O. F., all 
of Bay City, West Side, and is past grand of the 
Odd Fellows lodge at Meredith, Michigan. He 
is also a member of Salzburg Tent, No. 909, 
Knights of the Modern Maccabees: Michigan 
Tent, No. 2, Knights of the Maccabees of the 
World; John A. Logan Post, No. 8, L'nion Life 
Guards; and Perfect Primary, No. 23, Prudent 
Patricians of Pompeii, all of Bav Citv, West 
Side. 




TCHARD PADLEY. Among the 
many prominent men whose business 
ability and public spirit have contrib- 
uted to the material prosperity of Bay 
City, the late Richard Padley occupied a lead- 
ing place. Mr. Padley was born April 25. 1824, 
near Boston, Lincolnshire, England, and passed 
away in the fall of 1903, in his 80th year. 

Mr. Padley was a younger son of a gentle- 
man farmer in England. Tn 1852 he immi- 
grated to America with tlie determination of 



making a career for himself. Circumstances 
led to his locating at Bay City, Bay County, 
Alichigan. Here he entered into the industries 
of the section, working in the lumber districts, 
in sawmills and even on a pile-driver, finding 
excitement and adventure in this far Westem 
country a\ hich made him resolve to remain here 
permanent!}-. In 1857 he purchased his first 
farm, located on the Tuscola plank road. This 
land he cleared and cultivated but never re- 
sided upon it, later selling it and going into 
the shingle business. For five years he was 
associated with the late Theodore Walker, and 
then he resumed farming, buying tracts of land 
in Bangor township. He also followed con- 
tracting at Bay City and built many houses 
both on his own and other property. 

]\Ir. Padley also was the maker or construc- 
tor of the early macadamized roads about Bay 
City and not two years before his death he re- 
ceived a letter from the mayor of Detroit, ask- 
ing him to undertake a contract to construct 
many miles of such roads in and about Detroit. 
As he had retired from business over 30 years 
before, he wrote and declined the work. 

Air. Padley was prominent in civic affairs 
and accepted public office when called upon by 
his fellow-citizens to do so, serving as super- 
visor, as a meiuber of the School Board and as 
alderman. His business interests were numer- 
ous and he was financially connected with many 
of the city's most successful enterprises. Mr. 
Padley was one of the founders of Trinity 
Protestant Episcopal Church, of Bay City. 

By his first marriage, with Mary Barton, 
Mr. Padley had two daughters, — Charlotte 
(Mrs. Henry W. Weber), of West Bay City, 
and Eliza, who died in infancy. On July 18, 
1 89 1, in London, England, he was married to 
tlie talented lady who still sur\nves him, — 
Phillis Donnison, who is a daughter of the late 
Frederick Donnison. of the Stock Exchange, 



626 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and of Angel Park Gardens, Southwest Lon- 
don. Since the death of Mr. Padley, Mrs. 
Padley has admirably managed his large inter- 
ests. She occupies one of the most elegant 
homes in Bay City and many of the exquisite 
paintings, which adorn this perfect home, are 
the works of this artistic lady's brush. Her 
standing among artists in London is \'ery high. 
She lias exhibited a number of fine landscapes 
in the London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool 
and Manchester and Newcastle-on-Tyne an- 
nual exhibitions. Mrs. Padley is a charter 
member of the Bay City Woman's Club and 
has prepared many interesting papers of literary 
excellence for this society. 




ILLL-\M WAGNER, supervisor of 
Portsmouth township, one of the 
old and respected residents, resides 
on his well-cultivated farm of 80 
acres, situated in section 7. Mr. Wagner was 
torn in Nassau, Prussia^ Germany. May 12, 
1843, and is a son of Carl and Elizabeth (Her- 
bert) Wagner. 

The Wagners were people of intelligence 
and respectability in the community in Ger- 
many from which they came to America in 
search of better agricultural conditions. Li the 
fall of 1856 Carl Wagner, with his family, 
sailed from the port of Havre for New York, 
proceeded to Detroit by rail and started for 
Bay City, but the season was too far advanced 
for navigation and the steamer was ice-bound, 
the passengers not reaching their destination 
until the following April. Mr. Wagner first 
rented a 40-acre farm which he operated one 
year and then bought 40 acres in Hampton 
township. Bay County. Here he lived until the 
close of his useful life. He was born in Ger- 
many in 1 8 19, and died in 1884, aged 65 years. 



He served 18 years on the township board, was 
a justice of the peace for a long period, and 
was one of the leading men of his community. 
He married Elizabeth Herbert, who was torn 
in Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany, in 1820, and 
who still survives, making her home with her 
son, Philip Wagner. They had seven children, 
one of whom was born on the ocean. The 
record is as follows : Frederick, of Portsmouth 
township ; William, of this sketch ; Mrs. Amelia 
Ramm, of Bay City; Philip, a sketch of whom 
will be found in this work; Mrs. Gertrude 
Shultz. deceased; Mrs. Louisa Flues, deceased; 
and Elizabeth, of Bay City. 

Soon after reaching Bay City, our subject 
found employment with Thomas Stevenson, 
with whom he remained for two years. He 
then worked at home and in sawmills for the 
next seven years. He assisted in building and 
keeping in repair the old plank toll road in 
Hampton township, being thus employed for 
si.x years. He also conducted a meat market 
in Bay City for 18 months, his store being on 
the site of the present Federal Building on 
Third street. After his marriage he came to 
his present farm, which he had purchased in 
1863. about 10 acres of the 80 having been pre- 
viously cleared. The remainder he cleared and 
placed under cultivation himself, and in 1890 
he erected his comfortable dwelling and two 
substantial barns. He has carried on general 
farming, has done some raising of sugar beets, 
keeps 10 cows and cares for an orchard which 
covers three acres. 

Li 1870 Mr. Wagner was married to Hen- 
rietta N. Stenz. who was born May 4, 1848, at 
Monroe. Michigan, and is a daughter of Con- 
rad and Kunegunde (Seibert) Stenz, natives of 
Bavaria. Germany, who come to America in 
1846. Mr. Stenz died in 1884. The children 
born to Mr. and Mrs. Wagner were: Minnie, 
wife of Herman Smith of Bav Citv. who has 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



627 



six children ; Amelia, wife of Peter Smith, of 
Bang'or township. Bay County, who has six 
children; Mrs. Augusta Diehl, of Denmark 
township. Saginaw County, who has two chil- 
dren ; and Philip and Henry, who live at home. 
Mr. Wagner has always been affiliated with 
the Repyhlican party, casting his first presiden- 
tial vote at the second election of Abraham Lin- 
coln. In 1895 Mr. Wagner was first elected 
supervisor of his township and has held this 
office continuously ever since, with the excep- 
tion of two terms. For eight years he served 
as highway commissioner ; was township treas- 
urer for seven terms and has almost continu- 
ously been a school director since 1870. He is 
a member of the German Lutheran Church, of 
which he has been treasurer for 13 years and a 
trustee for nine years. 




UGENE FIFIELD, secretary of the 
Bay City-Michigan Sugar Cumpany, 
one of the largest business enterprises 
in this section of the State, is also 
identified with other important business con- 
cerns of this locality, which have been furth- 
ered more or less by his influence and good 
management. Mr. Fifield was born in Water- 
ford township, Oakland County, Michigan, 
March 5, 1851, and is a son of Hon. Francis 
W. and Joan (Morris) Fifield and a grandson 
of Samuel and Sarah (Norris) Fifield. 

Samuel Fifield was born in New Hamp- 
shire, August 23, 1793, from which state he 
entered the patriot army during the Revolution. 
He died September 10. 1843. Until her death, 
his widow drew a pension on account of his 
services. She was born in New Hampshire 
January 21. 1794. and died in Bay City, May 
26. 1884. 

Hon. Francis W. Fifield, our subject's 



father, was bom April 10, 1821, and came with 
his parents to Michigan, where the older In- 
field took up land in Oakland County. In 
early manhood he bought a farm in Waterford 
township, Oakland County, which he operated 
successfully until 1865, when he embarked in a 
mercantile business in the town. He was a man 
of business enterprise and owned and operated 
at this time a flouring-mill, a plaster-mill and 
an old-time, upright sawnu'll. In 1877 he dis- 
posed of his mercantile and manufacturing in- 
terests and returned to farming, settling in De- 
catur township, VanBuren County, where he 
lived until his death, December 3, 1893. He 
was one of the representative men of his time 
in his locality, a strong Democrat and an able 
member of his party. In 1863 he was elected 
to the State Legislature and at various times 
filled local offices of trust and responsibility. 
His name is still recalled as that of a man 
who was noted for his ability and for his up- 
rightness of character. For many years he was 
a member of Waterford Lodge of Masons, of 
which he was worshipful master for 21 years, 
and he was also high priest of Decatur Chapter, 
Royal Arch Masons. 

Francis W. h'ifield married Joan IMorris, 
who died in July, 1899, aged 80 years. She 
was a consistent member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. Of their seven children, 
onl}- three grew Xo maturity ; Eugene, of this 
sketch ; Ann Nettie, who married Cassius M. 
Lanning, of Decatur Michigan, and with her 
husband lives on the Fifield farm in Decatur 
township; and Hattie. who is the wife of Sam- 
uel S. Bradt, of Detroit. 

Eugene Fifield was reared by a wise father 
and a pious mother. He grew to manhood in 
the family home, securing a good, common- 
school education and then l)ecoming his father's 
chief clerk in the store and subsequently, in 
1871, his partner, the firm style being Fifield 



628 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



& Son. This continued until 1876, when our 
subject came to Bay City and went into part- 
nership with Gustin & ^Merrill, the firm name 
becoming Gustin, IMerrill & Company. This 
firm did a large grocery business and Mr. 
Fifield continued in tliis association of interests 
until 1884. when changes were made, our sub- 
ject and Mr. Merrill buying the Gustin interest. 
The firm then became Merrill, Fifield & Com- 
pany. This congenial business association was 
formed without any legal papers, simply the 
spoken agreement of two honorable and up- 
right men. Without a single jar or difference 
of opinion, the partnership continued until 
broken by the sudden death of Mr. Merrill on 
November 17, 1891. Mr. Fifield deeply felt 
the loss of his friend lx)th in a personal and 
business way, but he continued the business 
alone until the partnership term expired in 
1893, '^nd then closed out its affairs, his other 
business interests pressing for more attention. 
In 1892 Mr. Fifield, with others, operating 
under the firm name of Mundy & Fifield, 
bought a tract of 1.200 acres of land in Buena 
Vista and Zilwaukee townships, Saginaw 
County, Michigan. At that time this land was 
submerged during the greater part of the year, 
but when the new owners took charge a dredge 
was put in, dykes constructed and three cen- 
trifugal pumps installed, each having a capacity 
of 10,000 gallons of water per minute. A 
large part of this land is devoted to the grow- 
ing of sugar beets, but general farming is also 
carried on, grain and hay being harvested and 
stock raised. Mr. Fifield also owns a farm of 
240 acres in Monitor township, Bay County. 
This was formerly owned by Gustin & Merrill 
and later came into the possession of Merrill. 
Fifield & Company. Mr. Fifield operates both 
farms in the same w^y. Before he became so 
thoroughly identified with the beet sugar in- 
dustry, he made a specialty of Shropshire sheep 



and Hereford cattle, but he found that in order 
to make them profitable he would have to de- 
\"ote too much time to them, which was more 
valuable to him in other pursuits. On this 
farm, therefore, he now raises high grade cattle 
only for market purposes. In 1903 the F. ^l. 
B. Live Stock Company, of which Mr. Fifield 
is a member, purchased 2,100 acres of land in 
Iosco County for a sheep and cattle ranch. The 
sheep and cattle are wintered on the 1,200 acre 
farm in Saginaw County, and the 240-acre farm 
in ^lonitor township, Bay County, and in the 
spring are driven back to this ranch, in Iosco 
County, where they are summered. 

In 1897 the Michigan Sugar Company was 
incorporated at Bay City, with Thomas Cran- 
age, president ; Nathan B. Bradley, vice-presi- 
dent; Henry S. Raymond, secretary; and E. T. 
Carrington. treasurer. In June, 1903, this or- 
ganization was consolidated with the Bay City 
Sugar Company, and the new concern was 
called the Bay City-Michigan Sugar Company. 
The new officers consisted of : ^^'. L. Churchill, 
president, treasurer and general manager; and 
Eugene Fifield, secretary. On December 2, 
1898, the Bay City Sugar Company had been 
incorporated, the officers being : ^^^ L. Church- 
ill, president and manager; Benjamin Boutell, 
\-ice-president ; Baptist Benton, treasurer ; and 
Lorenzo S. Boutell, secretary. On Februan,^ 
7, 1 901, Mr. Churchill became secretary upon 
the resignation of Mr. Boutell and continued 
until May 28. 1901, when these officers were 
elected : \\'. L. Churchill, president and treas- 
urer; Benjamin Boutell. vice-president; and 
Eugene Fifield, secretary. The officers of this 
company remained the same until the consoli- 
dation above-mentioned. 

The company with which Mr. Fifield is so 
prominently identified has become one of the 
largest employers, operators and producers of 
any in this section. It has sliced more beets 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



629 



than an}' otlier company. One year this com- 
pany sHced 63,000 tons of beets and made 
nearly 15,000,000 pounds of sugar. What this 
means to this section, where tlie money is dis- 
tributed for the beets and the operation of the 
plant, may easily be estimated. It is interest- 
ing to note the prosperity this industry has 
i^rought into the agricultural districts. It costs 
a farmer from $30 to $35 an acre to raise beets, 
for which he gets from $50 to $75 an acre. 

In addition to his duties with the above 
company, Mr. Fifield is interested in the Tawas 
Sugar Company, of which he is secretary and a 
director. In 1886 he was elected director of 
the Michigan State Agricultural Society and 
has been a director ever since, and for the past 
eight years he has been general superintendent. 
When he became superintendent, the associa- 
tion was $25,600 in debt and his ailministration 
has been marked by the payment of all debts, 
with a balance in the treasury of $20,000. 

In 1875 Mr. Fifield was married to Hattie 
B. Hammond, who is a daughter of Joel Ham- 
mond, of Oakland County. One beautiful 
daughter was born to Mr. and Mrs. Fifield, a 
child who became the idol of her parents and 
one beloved by all who knew her. Her death 
occurred February 2;^. 1893, when but 13 years 
of age. Mrs. Fifield is a member of the Baptist 
Church. They occupy a beautiful residence 
on Fifth avenue, Bay City, 

In political sympathy Mr. Fifield is a Re- 
publican, but his business interests have always 
I)een of so much importance that he has had no 
time to give to politics. For many years he has 
been one of the leading members of the Ma- 
sonic fraternity in Michigan. He is a 33d 
degree Mason and has taken all the York Rite 
degrees, receiving this highest honor at Buffalo 
in 1896. He belongs to Bay City Lodge, Xo. 
129, F. & A. M., and Blanchard Chapter, Xo. 
59. R. A. M. : is past eminent commander of 



Bay City Commandery, Xo. 26, K. T. ; is past 
thrice potent grand master of McCormick 
Grand Lodge of Perfection ; is high priest of 
Bay City Council, Princes of Jerusalem; is past 
most wise and perfect master of Saginaw Val- 
ley Chapter, Rose Croix ; is a member of the 
Michigan Sovereign Consistory of Detroit; 
and of Moslem Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. He 
is president of the Bay City Masonic Temple 
Association, has been on the finance committee 
for years and is a trustee, and has long been 
identified with the Bay County Masonic Mu- 
tual Benefit ?fssociation. 




ILLIS D. FOX, one of the well- 
known business men of West Bay 
City, retail dealer in lumber, 
shingles, lath and interior finish- 
ings, was born at Genesee, Michigan, July 21, 
1857, and is a son of Jackson and Melissa 
(Bush) Fox. 

The Fox family is an old settled one in the 
"Empire" State, the grandfather of our sub- 
ject, Daniel D. Fox having been born at Sodus, 
Wayne County, X"ew York. About 1831 he 
moved with his family to Michigan. 

Jackson Fox, father of Willis D., was lx)rn 
at Sodus, February 23, 1833, and died in Mich- 
igan, September 18, 1898, aged 65 years. He 
was nine years old when his parents came to 
Genesse County Michigan, where he continued 
to live all his life. He carried on general farm- 
ing and stock-raising and was a man of consid- 
erable local prominence. He was a strong sup- 
porter of the principles of the Republican party 
and held many township ofifices, and was elected 
treasurer and highway commissioner on a 
numlier of occasions. He married Melissa A. 
Bush, who is a daughter of Henry Bush, of 
Canandaigua, X^ew York. She still resides on 



630 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



the old homestead in Genesse County, aged 67 
years, and her venerable mother lives at Howell, 
Livingston County, Michigan. 

Jackson Fox and wife had 10 children, viz : 
Willis D., of this sketch; Addie, widow of 
Daniel D. Tompkins, a resident of Ouincy, 
Michigan; Lewis H., a resident of Richfield, 
Michigan; Elma E., wife of Edward C. Moss, 
of Genesee, Michigan; Charles M., of Flint, 
Michigan ; Arthur, of Genesee, Michigan ; 
Frank J., of Flint, Michigan; Myrtle, of Chi- 
cago ; and Irving J. and Clare, both of Flint, 
Michigan. 

Willis D. Fox was educated in the schools 
of Genesee County and remained on the home 
farm until he was 25 years of age. In 1882 he 
came to West Bay City and entered the employ 
of the lumber firm of Switzer & Eastwood, with 
which he remained about five years and then 
took charge of the retail department of the 
West Bay City Manufacturing Company, for 
some II years. On February i, 1899, Mr. Fox 
embarked in business for himself and has con- 
tinued to meet with satisfactory success. In 
1 89 1 he bought his present desirable location 
on the comer of Michigan and Williams 
streets. His energy and enterprise have en- 
abled him to build up a fine trade. 

Mr. Fox married Ida A. Le Baron, who 
was a daughter of Erastus Le Baron, of Fenton 
township, Genesee County, Michigan. Mrs. 
Fox died February 22, 1901, leaving four chil- 
dren motherless: Caroline M., Erma A., Lewis 
Curtis and Erastus J. She was an attendant of 
the Westminster Presbyterian Church. 

Mr. Fox is identified with the Republican 
party, and he has been chosen twice as alder- 
man from the Sixth Ward. His disinterested 
interest in public affairs has made him a very 
valuable city father. Fraternally he is a mem- 
ber of Wenona Lodge, No. 296, F. & A. M., of 
which he is past master and present secretary ; 



Blanchard Chapter, No. 59, R. A. M., of which 
he is past high priest ; and Bay City Comman- 
dery. No. 26, K. T. He belongs also to the 
Modern Woodmen of America. He is a man 
who stands very high in public esteem and well 
represents the honorable type of business men 
of West Bay City. 




RED E. SHEARER, one of the lead- 
ing business men of Bay City, gen- 
eral insurance agent and dealer in 
rubber stamps, steel dies and stencils, 
was born in this city, December 16, 1874, and 
is a son of John W. and Marie E. ( Earned ) 
Shearer. 

The Shearer family originated in Scotland, 
where for 14 generations they occupied and 
cultivated the same estates. Lhitil within the 
past two generations, the family has always 
been an agricultural one. 

George Shearer, the grandfather of our 
subject, was born in Scotland in 1817 and 
married Agnes Buchanan, who was born in 
1820. He accumulated an ample fortune, but, 
being a man of sympathetic nature, he was led 
to endorse paper for friends and thereby suf- 
fered great losses which were increased by a 
disastrous fire that swept away the old home. 
This led the family to remove to America. 
They settled at Albany, New York, where 
John W. Shearer was born August 19, 1833. 

In 1850 John W. Shearer went to Detroit 
where he learned the carpenter and joiner's 
trade with his brother, James Shearer, and in 
1856 he went South and spent four years in 
various car shops, filling the position of master 
mechanic. In i860 he returned to Detroit and 
formed a partnership with his brother, James 
Shearer, and they continued in business until 
the Civil War broke out. John W. Shearer 




BRAKIE J. ORR 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



633 



enlisted in the Second Regiment, Michigan 
Vol. Inf., as a private and was honorably dis- 
cliarged at Yorktown with the rank of lieu- 
tenant. In 1865 lie came to Bay City and took 
the contract to install machinery in D. G. Ar- 
nold's sash and blind factory, subsequently en- 
gaging with his brother, James Shearer, in mill 
construction. His last business partnership 
was with H. W'atkins. On June 30, 1866, he 
married Mary E. Earned, who was born in 
Ohio, and they had tln-ee children. John W. 
Shearer died May 15, 1903. 

Fred E. Shearer was educated in the Bay 
City public schools and began his business ca- 
reer in the employ of E. B. Foss & Company, 
tallying, a few months later accei^ting the same 
position on the river for different parties, and 
during his third and last season working for 
George Jackson. When cold weather inter- 
rupted lumber transportation, he took advan- 
tage of the opportunity to acquire a good 
knowledge of business in Devlin's Business 
College, in Bay City, and on October ^4, 1902, 
he entered the Bay City Bank as collector, from 
whicii position he was later advanced to be 
bookkeeper. In 1901 Mr. Shearer bought the 
G. \V. McCormick insurance agency and has 
continued in this business ever since, repre- 
senting the leading insurance companies of the 
world: Travelers" Life, Accident & Liability; 
American Central ; Home Fire & Marine ; 
Royal Exchange Assurance, of London ; Liver- 
pool & London & Globe ; London .Assurance ; 
Federal; Granite State; Mercantile I'ire & Ma- 
rine. Indianapolis; and British-.\merican .As- 
surance, of Toronto; and also represents the 
American Surety Company of New York ; the 
Maryland Casualty Company of Baltimore and 
the New Jersey Plate Glass Insurance Com- 
pany. 

On April 15, 1903, Mr. Shearer married 



Roxanna Peter, who is a daughter of William 
.\. Young, of Bay City, Michigan. 

Politically Mr. Shearer is active in Repub- 
lican politics. He is a very prominent member 
of numerous fraternal orders, belonging to 
Bay City Lodge, No. 129, F. & A. M. ; Blanch- 
ard Chapter, No. 59, R. A. M. ; Bay City Coun- 
cil, No. 53, R. & S. M. : and all the Scottish 
Rite bodies in Bay City and the Michigan Sov- 
ereign Consistory, S. P. R. S., and Moslem 
Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., at Detroit. He is 
also a member of Lodge No. 88, B. P. O. E. ; 
of the Knights of the Loyal Guard : and of the 
Bay City Club. He is an attendant of the Pres- 
byterian Church. 




RAKIE J. ORR, city attorney of Bay 
City and prosecuting attorney of Bay 
County, whose portrait accompanies 
this sketch, was born in i860 at Sagi- 
naw, Michigan. His parents, Alexander and 
Lovina (Goheen) Orr, who are both living, 
are highly respected residents of Saginaw. 
Ale.xander Orr is of Scotch-Irish descent, his 
father having come to America during' the 
early part of the 19th century and engaged in 
contracting and building and also in dealing 
in real estate. He was killed in 1837 while en- 
gaged in the construction of the first church 
erected in the then village of Chicago. Alex- 
ander Orr was torn in New York City about 
67 years ago and there learned the trade of a 
cooper. However, he worked at this business 
very little and after removing to Saginaw in 
1857 he accepted a position as shipping clerk 
in a large hardware company of that city and 
remained in the employ of the concern in that 
capacity for many years. Later he engaged in 
contracting and building in a small way and 



34 



634 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



has continued to make his home in Saginaw. 
His wife, Lovina Goheen, was of Dutch parent- 
age and is a native of Pennsylvania. They have 
nine sons and a daughter Hving. Our subject's 
brother William formerly resided in Bay City. 

Brakie J. Orr, the subject of this sketch, 
attended the Saginaw High School and for a 
time took up the study of medicine, which was 
afterwards discontinued. He learned the stone- 
cutter's trade and for 17 years worked at it, 
in the meantime taking up the study of the law 
in Bay City with such good success that he was 
admitted to the bar in 1894. He has been 
engaged in the constant practice of his profes- 
sion ever since. Almost immediately after his 
admission to the bar, he was elected to the 
office of justice of the peace and a little more 
than two years later resigned from this office 
to accept that of assistant prosecuting attorney 
under Mr. Gilbert. After serving in that capac- 
ity during 1897 and 1898, he was appointed 
city attorney and he has but lately been chosen 
by the voters of Bay County to look after their 
interests as prosecuting attorney of the county. 

Mr. Orr was joined in marriage to Euphe- 
niia A. Calvin, of Bay City, and their pleasant 
home on Garfield avenue is made more cheerful 
by the presence of a happy family of children. 
The eldest son, Herbert S., who is at present 
in the law department of the University of 
Michigan at Ann Arbor, was born at Saginaw. 
The other children, — Queenie, Sadie, James, 
Norman, Ruth, Frederick M. (or "Teddie" as 
he has been lovingly termed) and Hilda, — are 
all natives of Bay City and live at home. Mr. 
Orr was brought up in a Methodist home and 
still favors that denomination. In politics he is 
a Republican. He is prominent in fraternal 
orders, being a member of Joppa Lodge, No. 
315, F. & A. M. ; Columbia Camp, No. 1328, 
M. W. of A. ; Bay Lodge, No. 104, 1. O. O. F. ; 
Kanonda Encampment, No. 36, I. O. O. F. : 



Grace Lodge, No. 8, Rebekah Degree of the 
I. O. O. F., of which Mrs. Orr is also a mem- 
ber ; and he is the present deputy grand master 
of the Grand Lodge of Michigan, I. O. O. F. 




EORGE A. HERBOLSHIMER, one 
of the well-known general farmers 
of Frankenlust township, resides on 
a farm of 80 acres in section 10, 
township 13. range 4. and was born in this sec- 
tion, in the old home in which his brother now 
lives, November 18, 1856. He is a son of John 
George and Mary (Hacht) Herbolshimer. 

The father of our subject was one of the 
old pioneer settlers in Frankenlust township. 
He came here from Germany in 1S52 and lived 
here until his death in 1872, at the age of 52 
years. During his 20 years' residence in section 
10 he cleared up a farm of 53 acres and made 
it a valuable property with many improve- 
ments. Tlie first h.ome. a log cabin 20 by 26 
feet in dimensions, was the birthplace of our 
subject and remained the family shelter until 
he was 12 years old. Mr. Herbolshimer was a 
Democrat in his political faith. He was a 
member of the German Lutheran Church and 
helped to build the first church structure of 
this denomination in Frankenlust township. 
In 1854 he married Mary Hacht, who was born 
in Germany in 1827, and who still survives, 
residing at Pontiac. Michigan. Their children 
were: George A., of this sketch; John, who 
lives on the homestead farm ; Barbara, who re- 
sides with our subject: Mary (Mrs. Herman 
Timm), of Bay City: and Maggie (Mrs. War- 
ren Curley), of Bay City. 

When our subject took charge of his pres- 
ent home farm, it was partially cleared, but the 
stumps remained and it took a long period of 
hard work to put the land under cultivation. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



635 



He also owns 90 acres in section 6 and formerly 
owned another farm of 80 acres in section 8, 
all in township 13. range 4, which he gave to 
his son John. He carries on a general line of 
farming and has always been noted lor the ex- 
cellence of his methods and the satisfying char- 
acter of their results. The place where Mr. 
Herholshimer and family live is one of the most 
attracti\-e rural homes in the township. The 
residence is large, convenient and comfortable, 
and the two substantial barns indicate the 
abundance of his crops. A prolific orchard also 
contributes to the family comfort and adds to 
the yearly income. 

In 1880 Mr. Herholshimer was married to 
Maggie Weiss, who was born in Frankenlust 
township, November 16, 1856, and is a daugh- 
ter of George and Christina (Feinauer) Weiss, 
natives of Germany. They have six children : 
John Gottlieb, John George. Christian, An- 
drew, Anna and Mary. 

In politics our subject is a strong Democrat. 
He is a stockholder in the German-American 
Sugar Company whose factory is located at 
Salzburg, and was one of the first to invest in 
this stock. He is one of the leading members 
of St. John's German Lutheran Church at 
Amelith, Frankenlust township. 



M 



OHN P>. MORITZ. secretary, treasurer 
and general manager of the Bay City 
Brewing Company, was born at Port 
W'ashington. Wisconsin. May 26, 
1855. '"■"1 h^s been a resident of Bay City since 
the early part of 1884. 

Mr. Moritz was educated in the schools of 
Port Washington and Milwaukee. At the age 
of 16 years he accompanied his parents to Ger- 
many, and during the subsequent three years 
visited nil the leading breweries of Europe in 



order to acquaint himself with all the meth- 
ods and details of manufacture. Mr. Moritz 
was 19 years old when he returned to Mil- 
waukee, and he then entered the employ of the 
Philip Best Brewing Company as a brewer. 
Two years later he became foreman of the 
Ozaukee County Malting Company and re- 
mained with that organization for 31 months. 
His next business connection, prior to coming 
to Bay City, January i, 1884, was with the 
Hansen Hop & Malt Company as superintend- 
ent of the malt house and as traveling salesman. 

The Bay City Brewing Company is one of 
the old business concerns of this place, the pres- 
ent name having been adopted in 1884. It was 
established originally by Van Meter & Com- 
pany, -who came to Bay City from Albany, 
New York. The product they manufactured 
was known as "Present Use" ale. About 1873 
Charles E. Young interested himself with them 
and the business was carried on, first under his 
name, and later, as Charles E. Young & Com- 
pany. At this period the brewery l^egan the 
manufacture of lager beer in a small way, and 
the business was conducted on these lines until 
1884. when it was reorganized and incorpo- 
rated under the present firm style of Bay City 
Brewing Company. The officers at organiza- 
tion were : Charles E. Young, president ; John 
E. Moritz, vice-president; Walter Young, sec- 
letary and president; and Louis Moritz, super- 
intendent. Both Mr. Young and Louis Moritz 
die,i in 1902. The present officers of the com- 
pany are: W. D. Young, president; W. A. 
Young, vice-president ; and John B. Moritz, 
secretary, treasurer and general manager. 

In 1902 a brick brew house was erected, 
fcr.r stories high, 170 by 55 feet in ground di- 
mensions, but by 1905 the growth of the busi- 
ness had been such as to necessitate the building 
of a bottle house 108 by 86 feet, two stories 
high, which is also constructed of brick. The 



636 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



company employs about 25 experienced men, 
and the product is sold mainly through Michi- 
gan. 

Air. Moritz was married to Marie Gavord, 
of Bay City, and they have two sons, — Adolph 
and Louis. Mr. Moritz is an enterprising and 
public spirited man. He has a wide acquaint- 
ance through the State and is personally very 
popular in Bay City. He is a member of Lodge 
No. 88, B. P. O. E., and other social organi- 
zations. 




ENRY TURNER, postmaster at La- 
redo, and one of the leading general 
merchants of W'illiams township, and 
also the owner of a fine farm of 40 
acres in section 16, was born in Pennsylvania. 
February 22, i860, and is a son of John and 
Mary (Higgins) Turner. 

The father of Mr. Turner was born in the 
State of New York, but later moved to Ohio, 
where he bought a farm and operated it until 
he came to Michigan, about the time of the 
opening of the Civil War. He was a loyal 
supporter of the government and enlisted in 
its service, and for two years was a member 
of a Alichigan regiment. In 1865 he located in 
Midland County, but subsequently went pros- 
pecting in British Columbia, wdience came the 
news of his death. He was then 55 years old. 

Our subject attended the local schools and 
grew up on his father's farm. He continued to 
pursue farming as an occupation until 1901, 
when he bought the village store and was ap- 
pointed postmaster by the late President Mc- 
Kinley. He continues to operate his farm 
which promises to be a very valuable piece of 
property. Experts are testing for coal, indica- 
tions of its presence having been found. Mr. 
Turner is one of the leading men of his locality. 
He carries a large stock of goods, including 



everything likely to be needed throughout the 
surrounding country. 

Mr. Turner was married February 3, 1884, 
to Belle Snyder, at Flushing, Michigan. She 
is a daughter of John and Maria (Eaton) 
Snyder, of Holly, Oakland County, wdiere Mr. 
Snyder was a merchant and man of promi- 
nence. "Sir. Snyder died June 12, 1902, aged 
82 years. His widow still lives, making her 
home in New Lothrop, Michigan. Mr. and 
Mrs. Turner have one daughter, Laura, an 
attractive and accomplished young lady of 20 
years, the sunshine of the home. Mr. Turner is 
one of the stanch Republicans of Williams 
township. 




LDER WALTER SIMS. It is often 
said that man proposes but God dis- 
jjoses, and the truth of this has been 
many times e.xemplified in the life of 
Elder Walter Sims. Nothing was farther from 
the ideals of his youth or the aspirations of his 
early manhood than the thought of becoming a 
preacher. By circumstances which he could 
not avoid he was led into the work and, though 
seeking many times in the beginning to escape 
from the path in wdiich his footsteps were be- 
ing directed, God has show-n him, by unmis- 
takable manifestations of divine power, that 
only in the path of obedience is there rest and 
joy. Elder Sims was born at Brantford, On- 
tario, August 19, 1849, 'i"'^! 's a son of Edwin 
and Mary (Duckworth) Sims. 

The father of our esteemed subject was 
born in 1823, at Cheltenham, England, where 
his father was the owner of larges estates. He 
was carefully reared in a home of wealth, re- 
ceived a college education and was trained in 
music for which he had great talent. He be- 
came an accomplished pipe organist and before 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



^37 



leaving England was organist in a large cathe- 
dral. The panic of 1837 greath- depleted his 
father's resources and caused tlie emigration 
of the whole family to Canada. There Solo- 
nmn Sims^ the paternal grandfather of our sub- 
ject ami head of the family, secured a large 
tract of land and conducted agricultural opera- 
tions for his remaining years. He was a local 
preacher in the Methodist Church for many 
years and a worthy, Christian man in every 
walk of life. 

The famil}- grew and prospered in Canada 
and the father of Elder Sims was appointed, 
shortly after his marriage, crown commis- 
sioner, an office he still holds, at the advanced 
age of 82 years. The mother of Elder Sims 
was Mary Duckworth, who was a daughter of 
Stephen and Alice (Baraclough) Duckworth. 
Stei)hen Duckworth was a merchant in En- 
gland, but emigrated also to Canada and settled 
at Rrantford. The children born to Edwin 
Sims and wife were: Walter, of this sketch; 
Edmund and Robert (twins), the latter of 
whom is deceased; John J., who is engaged in 
evangelistic work in Ireland; Stephen H., who 
is a teacher in Bay county, Michigan ; Elizabeth 
E., the widow of Merion Whitney, of Hamil- 
ton, Ontario; Annie M., the wife of George 
Mitchell, of Detroit ; Mary, deceased, who was 
the wife of the late Herbert George, of Chi- 
cago; and Martha, who is the wife of Robert 
Charles, of Adrian, Michigan. The religious 
connections on the maternal side had been with 
the Protestant Episcopal Church, but they later 
became connected with the Wesleyan Metho- 
dist Church. The father was a Methodist in 
his earlier years, but later became identified 
with the Plymouth Brethren. 

Walter Sims was reared in a home where 
virtue and industry were taught. His educa- 
tion was secured at the Collegiate Institute at 
Brantford, from whicli he was graduated with 



a life teacher's certificate of the ist class, and 
he immediately engaged in teaching, officiating 
at several places, one of these being the 
Burlington School near Hamilton. He then 
became the Hamilton correspondent and repre- 
sentative of the Toronto Globe. After several 
years of work in this capacit}' he was sent as 
the representative of this great journal to Eng- 
land, having letters of introduction to many 
members of Parliament. After some time 
spent in London, during which he fulfilled the 
wishes of his employers entirely to their satis- 
faction, he returned to Canada and was ap- 
pointed cashier of the company that published 
the paper. This position he retained but a 
short time, removing in 1877 to Detroit where 
he became superintendent of a railroad news 
agency and continued connected with that work 
until he came to Bay City in 1880. 

Although from this date Elder Sims be- 
came more prominently identified with public 
religious work, for many years prior to this 
time he had been an earnest Christian laborer, 
preaching at various times as opportunities 
offered. Matters of business importance 
brought him to Bay City just at a time when 
a somewhat noted rabid temperance agitator 
had secured Rouech Hall in this city, where he 
was nightly pouring forth torrents of vitupera- 
tion against all who countenanced the liquor 
traffic. One evening our subject went up to the 
hall to hear this speaker, but for some reason 
the agitator did not appear and as an audience 
was assembled Mr. Sims consented to address 
them. His lecture was not what they had ex- 
pected, for it was a .stirring Gospel appeal, but 
it was so well received that he consented to 
speak on the following and subsequent nights. 
The results of his work were astonishing and 
when he returned to Detroit the people were 
loath to let him go. Thus he was led to give 
up his interests in Detroit and to return to Bay 



638 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



City where a field seemed ripe for his garner- 
ing. Upon his return to Bay City he founded 
the Christian Assembly, a sketch of which will 
be found in the historical part of this volume 
which is devoted to the churches of Bay City. 

Elder Sims was married at Guelph, On- 
tario, to Elizabeth Knowles, who is a daughter 
of Robert and Jane (Poole) Knowles. The 
latter \vas born at Bandon, near Cork, Ireland, 
her people being originally English. They 
went to Ireland with Cromwell, from whom 
they received large estates. The children born 
to this marriage are : Edwin Walter, who is 
solicitor of the Department of Labor and Com- 
merce at Washington; Robert Henry Hewitt 
Poole, who is field manager for the Bobbs-Mer- 
rill Publishing Company, of Indianapolis; 
George Reginald, of New York City, who is 
one of the managers for the University So- 
ciety ; Herbert, who is one of the assistant man- 
agers of the Bobbs-Merrill Publishing Com- 
pany; and William S., of Chicago, who is man- 
ager of the claim department of the Western 
Electric Company. 

Elder Walter Sims is a man of strong per- 
sonality, possessing all the qualities of a leader. 
He has no creed but the Bible, believing that 
all denominational divisions are unscriptural. 
He has proven himself a man among men and 
Bay City honors and loves him. 

He is a member of the Bay City Yacht Club 
and takes much pleasure in sailing on the 
waters of the river and bay. 

Elder Sims became a national character 
during the campaign of the American Protec- 
tive Association as a champion of the principles 
of separation of church and state and the 
American public schools. The following is 
from the Chicago Iiitcr-Occan of July 16, 
1894: 

Prof. Walter Sims, the lecturer of the American 
Protective Association, is one of the men who are 



destined to play a conspicuous part in public affairs 
during the next few years. Even to those who differ 
from him, his personality must have an interest. 

During his visit to Chicago two weeks ago, when 
he delivered an address at Central Music Hall, Pro- 
fessor Sims made a favorable impression. He is a man 
of fine appearance and of undoubted eloquence, and 
has a faculty of winning friends. He is never scurri- 
lous nor bigoted, and in his lectures endeavors to 
make plain the elements he condemns as un-American, 
always carefully distinguishing between what is re- 
ligious and what is political. 

Professor Sims was born in Brantford, Ontario, 
Canada in August, 1849. He was educated at the 
schools of his native place, graduating from the Brant- 
ford Institute. After teaching school for a few years 
in Hamilton, Ontario, he became connected with the 
Toronto Globe. In 1874 he moved to Detroit, Michi- 
gan, and later to Bay City, in the same State, where 
he still resides. 

He was principal of the West Side Academy, Bay 
City, for II years, and for three years was editor and 
proprietor of the West Bay City Daily Post. 




OBERT JNIONRO, one of the most ex- 
tensive farmers and stock-raisers of 
Bay County, was born in the Province 
of Ontario, Canada, September 10, 
1834. Pie is a son of Samuel and Margaret 
(Young) i\Ionrij, both natives of Canada. 

Samuel Monro followed farming through- 
out life and was 55 years old at the time of his 
death, which resulted from an accident while 
taking out timber. ]\Irs. Alonro moved to 
Michigan with our subject and lived in this 
State until 1869, when she died at Unionville, 
aged 63 years. They had the following chil- 
dren : Mary, who died at the age of 10 years; 
William, who died in 1901. aged 80 years; Jane 
(McComber), who lives in Florida: Emily, 
who is living at Unionville at the age of 78 
years; Lucinda (Fuller), deceased; George, 
who went to British Columbia ; Robert ; Cath- 
erine (Roe), who died in British Columbia in 
1903: Sarah, who died in St. Clair County, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



639 



Michigan; Daniel, deceased; Lydia, who died 
near St. Mary's, Canada ; and one that died in 
infancy. 

Robert Monro was reared on a farm and 
was 17 years old at the time of his father's 
death, thereafter conducting the home farm for 
his mother. They later removed to Michigan 
and purchased a farm of 240 acres in Tuscola 
County, where he still owns 80 acres. He re- 
sided there for more than 36 years, then came 
to Bay County, Michigan, and purchased 800 
acres of valuable land in sections 25, 26 and 36, 
Hampton township. He sold 241 acres of im- 
proved land and moved to his present farm, 
where he has erected a substantial dwelling, 
good barns and out-buildings. He now has 820 
acres and conducts a stock farm, buying, sell- 
ing and shipping stock to distant points. He 
raises corn and about 100 tons of prairie and 
timothy hay each season and employs about 
five hands. While in Tuscola County, he was 
in the livery and butcher business for a period 
of seven years and met with deserved success at 
the same time conducting the affairs of his 
farm. He was a stanch Republican in politics 
for many years, but of late years has been inde- 
pendent. He has held numerous township 
offices such as highway commissioner and 
school trustee. Religiously, he is a member of 
the Presbyterian Church. 

In i86g Robert Monro was united in mar- 
riage with Johanna Ellis, who was born in St. 
Catharines, Ontario, in 1836, and is a daughter 
of John Ellis, who was a custom house officer 
at St. Catharines until he was retired on a pen- 
sion because of old age. Five children were 
born to bless this union, namely : Charles, who 
lives in Hampton township; Baney, wife of 
John Cline, of Hampton township; Jane, wife 
of Stephen Delling, of Tuscola County; Will- 
iam, of Unionville, who is residing on one of 
his father's farms; and T.ena, who married 



Robert Young, had one child and died at the age 
of 22 years. Mrs. iMonro died January 22, 
1905, and was laid to rest in the new cemetery 
at Bay City. 




BRAM SIMPKINS, deputy postmas- 
ter at Linwood, Bay County, and one 
of the highly respected citizens of 
Eraser township, was born in Bruce 
township, Macomb County, Michigan, in 1840, 
and is a son of Samuel and Hepzibah (Haines) 
Simpkins. 

The father of Mr. Simpkins was born in 
1793 in Albany County, New York, and died in 
Macomb County, Michigan, at the age of 62 
years. The mother was born in 1808. in the 
Catskill Mountains, in Greene County, New 
York, and died at Limvood in 1886, aged yj 
years. Our subject was the only child of his 
parents. 

Air. Simpkins was educated in the schools 
of Macomb County, to which his parents later 
removed, and became a practical farmer. From 
his 22d year to 1876, he followed farming in 
Shiawassee County, Michigan, and then came 
to Bay County, buying a farm in Kawkawlin 
township. This he operated until an accident 
made it impossible for him to continue an agri- 
cultural life. In 1886 he was appointed post- 
master at Linwood by President Cleveland, and 
he occupied the office for three years. In 1894 
he was appointed deputy postmaster and still 
serves in this position. Mr. Simpkins has many 
friends, made during his long term in office. 

In 1870 Mr. Simpkins was united in mar- 
riage to Carrie A. Muck, who is a daughter of 
Myron F. Muck, a prominent citizen and farmer 
of Shiawassee County, Michigan. They have 
two childcen living, viz : Edward H., born in 
1872. a traveling salesman in the confectionery 
line; and Susan, born in 1886, who lives at 



640 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



home. Lizzie Maj- and Willie A. are deceased. 
Politically, Mr. Simpkins has always been 
identified with the Democratic party. Fra- 
ternally he is an Odd Fellow. In religious 
views he is independent bnt has always been a 
liberal supporter of all moral and educational 
movements. 



R. OTTO B. GATES, a practitioner of 
(isteopathy at Bay City, was born in 
Barry County, Michigan, July 15, 
1866, and is a son of Edwin M. and 
Delia Hannah ( Kellogg) Gates. 

Both the Gates and Kellogg families are 
representati\-e American. Many members of 
both fill the public eye at the present time, in 
various fields of activity. The paternal grand- 
father of Dr. Gates was an early pioneer in 
Michigan, bringing his family from \^ermont, 
by way of the Erie Canal from Fort Edward 
to Bufifalo, up the lake to Detroit and by team 
to Marshall, Michigan and thence to the ham- 
let in Eaton County, which he named \^ermont- 
ville. He was a contractor and builder. 

Edwin M. Gates accompanied the faniil}' to 
Michigan and remained here until he had fitted 
himself to be a teacher, when he went back to 
the East and followed teaching in Vermont un- 
til his health failed. Upon his return to Michi- 
gan he attempted farming, but that life was not 
to his taste, and as he had become a practical 
builder and contractor, under his father, he set 
up in the business for himself. He was one of 
the founders of Nashville, Barry County, where 
he lived until 1874, when he removed to Ionia 
County and engaged in lumbering until his 
death, March 11, 1894. During this time he 
also owned a farm and held the office of justice 
of the peace. He also was a useful member of 
various school boards, and he never lost his in- 
terest in educational matters. For manv years 



he \\as connected with the Masonic fraternity. 

On June 22, 1853, he married Delia Han- 
nah Kellogg, and they had a family of five sons, 
three of whom grew to maturity : Archie D., of 
Sheridan, Michigan: Otto B., of this sketch; 
and Roy M., of Grand Rapids, Michigan. 
Archie D., the eldest, was a volunteer in Com- 
pany I, 31st Michigan Infantry, U. S. Volun- 
teers, in the Spanish-American War. At 
Chickamauga he fell a victim to typhoid fever 
and was brought home on a stretcher. He has 
never regained his health. 

After completing the common-school 
course, our subject learned telegraphing and has 
filled every position in that branch of railroad 
work, from night operator to chief train de- 
spatcher, and has had under his care at one time 
600 miles of railroad lines on one of the busiest 
W'estern roads, when he was obliged to have 
25 office assistants. However successful he 
became in that line, his ambition was not quite 
satisfied, however, for he had always had a 
leaning toward the study of medicine. The 
desire became so strong at last that he gave up 
railroad work and entered upon the study of 
osteopathy, after considering the claims of all 
other schools. He was fortunate in securing as 
an instructor the founder of the system, A. T. 
Still, M. D., and he was graduated in the Amer- 
ican School of Osteopathy, in June, 1903. Dr. 
Gates is not alone in his enthusiasm concerning 
this new system of healing, for many have com- 
menced to repudiate the wholesale drugging of 
the old schools and to gladly seek relief through 
the scientific manipulations of the well-trained 
osteopath. After passing the examination of 
the State board, he began the practice of his 
profession in Hastings, Barry County. In Sep- 
tember, 1904, he removed to Bay City, where 
he has met with a very cordial reception, and 
numbers among his patrons many of the best 
penple of the city. 




CAPT. HIRAM B. BECKER 



MRS. LUCY E. BECKER 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



643 



Dr. Gates married Pauline Newcomer, who 
is a daughter of Dr. Henry Newcomer, of Tou- 
lon, Illinois, and they have one son, — Henry 
Martin. They attend the Baptist Church. 

Dr. Gates is a member of the Michigan 
State Osteopathic Association and the Ameri- 
can Osteopathic z\ssociation. His fraternal 
connections are the following : Joppa Lodge 
No. 315, F. & A. M.: Bay City Chapter, No. 
136, k. A. M. ; Bay City Council, No. 53, R. & 
S. M. : Bay City Commandery, No. 26, K. T., 
all of Bay City; Queen Esther Chapter, No. 35, 
O. E. S., of Ionia, Michigan ; Wabasis Tent, 
No. 144, K. O. T. M. M., of Ionia. Michigan, 
of which he was commander in 1892; Ionia 
Council, No. 623, Royal Arcanum: and Bay 
Lodge, No. 104, I. O. O. F.. of Bay City. 




APT. HIRAM B. BECKER, de- 
ceased, was a prominent resident of 
Merritt township. Bay County, 
Michigan, where he had resided and 
farmed for many years. He was well-known 
among his fellow-citizens in the county, and 
also among the lake men, with whom he worked 
in earlier life. 

Captain Becker was born in Painesville, 
Ohio. July 6, 1840. and was a son of Barney 
and Hannah (Rose) Becker, natives of Lower 
Canada and New York State, respectively. He 
was next to the youngest of six sons and six 
daughters born to his parents. All of the sons 
became captains of vessels on the Great Lakes. 
Of these children, three now live, namely : 
John, of Missouri ; Albert, of Painesville, Ohio ; 
and Mrs. Lucinda Pike. 

.\t the early age of 12 years. Captain 
Becker, with a brother, commenced sailing on 
the vessel "Emory Fletcher," of Cleveland, 
Ohio, making the trip between Saginaw and 



Cleveland. He became mate under his 
brother, and in 1863 became captain of 
the "J. C. Hill," running between the 
same ports for two seasons. He then 
sailed the "Colorado" two seasons, load- 
ing supplies at Cleveland and lumber at 
Saginaw and Bay City. During the season of 
1863, he brought the brick for the Thomas 
Watkins home, erected at the corner of Center 
and W'ashington avenues in Bay City, and in 
1865 the stone for the Fraser House. During 
the same year he purchased a farm in section 
II, AVilliams township, and commenced exten- 
sive improvements immediately, erecting the 
first frame dwelling in the northern part of the 
township. Of this tract of 80 acres he cleared 
40, which he devoted to general farming, and 
also set out an orchard and erected substantial 
buildings. In addition to farming, he engaged 
in lumbering and attained considerable success. 
The North W'illiams post office was located on 
this farm until abandoned because of the rural 
free delivery of mail. He sold this property 
in 1884 and moved to West Bay City, where 
he bought Paul Kusch's brick cottage, which 
he remodeled and enlarged into a hotel build- 
ing. He then conducted the Becker House, 
now known as the Wenona House, for eight 
and a half years, at the end of which time he 
exchanged it for 80 acres of land in section 13, 
INIerritt township, where he spent the remainder 
of his days, dying May 13, 1904. Thirty-five 
acres of this land had previously been broken, 
and he cleared 40 acres more. He engaged in 
raising stock and grain, and always contended 
that his was one of the best grain farms in the 
county. He erected a comfortable home and 
good substantial outbuildings, and set out a 
fine orchard. He was a quiet home man, much 
devoted to his family, and was always found 
in their companionship except when away on 
business. 



644 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



In 1865, Captain Becker was united in 
marriage with Lucy E. Hardy, who was born 
in Painesville, Ohio, July 6, 1843, and is a 
daughter of EHsha and Lois (Bushnell) Hardy, 
the former a native of Painesville, Ohio, and 
the latter, of Connecticut. Mrs. Hardy was 
distantly related to Governor Bushnell, of 
Ohio. j\Irs. Becker is the oldest of three chil- 
dren ; her brothers, — Samuel and Ambrose. — 
live in Williams township. Three children 
were born to bless the union of Captain and 
Mrs. Becker, as follows : Ward, who died of 
diphtheria at the age of 15 years; Ellis, who is 
single and manages the home farm for his 
mother ; and Effie, who died at the age of three 
and a half months. Mrs. Becker is a woman 
of most lovable character, and is well liked by 
her many acquaintances, among whom she has 
lived so many years. Portraits of Captain and 
Mrs. Becker accompany this sketch. 




ULILTS KAISER, vice-president and 
superintendent of the Phcenix Brew- 
ing Company, whose brewery is lo- 
cated in Bay City, West Side, is an 
exceptionally good business man, a practical 
brewer and is also one of the city's enterprising 
citizens. Mr. Kaiser is of German birth, born 
May I, i860, in Gommersdorf, Tauberbischof- 
sheim, Baden, and is a son of John Adam and 
Juliana (Baier) Kaiser. 

The father of Mr. Kaiser was born in 1S34 
in the town in Baden, Germany, named above. 
He followed agricultural pursuits all his life, 
dying on his homestead. July 12, 1904. His 
seven children were : Charles, of Bay City ; 
Florian, of Mount Pleasant, Michigan: Joseph 
Peter, a brewer with the Champion Brewing 
Company, of Detroit : Julius, of the Phoenix 
Brewing Company ; Ludwig, of Saxony, Aus- 



tria ; August, who is living on the homestead 
farm ; and Alary, a Sister of Charity at Man- 
heim, Baden. Both the father and mother of 
this family were devout Roman Catholics. 

Our subject completed the common-school 
course in his native locality and enjoyed two 
years instruction at the gymnasium. He then 
learned the brewing business and followed it at 
various points until 1882, when he came to 
West Bay City where his brother, Joseph Peter 
Kaiser, was already established. He went to 
work for the Ba}' City Brewing Company and 
in 1883 became foreman for the West Bay City 
Brewing Company and remained with that or- 
ganization until the Phoenix Brewing Company 
was formed. 

The beginning of the business, which 
through many changes has developed into the 
great industry known as the Phoenix Brewing 
Company, was as far back as 1865, when Johp 
Rosa established a primitive brewery upon the 
establishment's present site, and operated it for 
about 10 years. He then took in Andrew Fink 
as a partner and the firm became the West Bay 
City Brewing Company. Mr. Fink remained 
four years and then John Kohler and Jacob 
Knoblach became proprietors and the business 
was continued under the same name. They con- 
ducted it from 1882 until 1896, when the brew- 
ery was destroyed by fire. In 1898 the Phoenix 
Brewing Company was organized and it bought 
the property. The plant consists of a four-story 
brick building, soot house, one racking room 
and one wash house 34 by 90 feet : boiler room, 
with two boilers, each having 100 degrees high 
pressure '.and a bottling department with di- 
mensions of 80 by T,2 feet. The capacity of the 
plant is 25,000 barrels a year. A large quan- 
tity of export and keg beer goes north. Six 
teams are in constant requisition. The busi- 
ness is one of the prospering ones of Bay City, 
West Side, and it is backed by plenty of capi- 



AND REPKESEXTATRE CITIZENS. 



645 



tal. The president of the company is Frank 
H. ]\Iohr, Louis Hine is secretary and man- 
ager and Julius Kaiser is vice-president and 
superintendent. ]Mr. Kaiser lias full charge 
and oversight of the manufacture of the pro- 
duct, his practical knowledge of all the details 
of brewing making his service very efficient 
and insuring the uniform grade of the goods as 
well as their healthful purity. 

Mr. Kaiser was married in \\'est Bay City 
to Minnie Bronke. who is a daughter of August 
Bronke, and they have a family of five chil- 
dren : Hattie. Ludwig, Minnie, Julius. Jr., and 
Edward. 

Mr. Kaiser is connected with these organi- 
zations: Arbeiter Unterstuetzung Verein, Mac- 
cabees and Brewerv Masters' Union. 




ERGT.-MAJ. CHARLES C. CUTH- 
BERT, superintendent of Pine Ridge, 
Green Ridge and Seaman's cemeter- 
ies, was born in Bay City, Michigan, 
February 17, 1879, and is a son of Charles and 
Jane (Carter) Cuthbert. 

The father of our subject was born May 30, 
1824, in England, and died in Bay County, 
Michigan, December 6, 1896, aged 72 years. 
He was married in Canada wdiere he resided 
some years, but in 1875 he came to Bay County 
and purchased a farm which is now owned by 
our subject. He carried on general farming 
and also operated a dairy. In politics he sup- 
ported the Republican party. He was a valued 
member of Trinity Protestant Episcopal 
Cinirch, of Bay City, a religious tody to which 
his surviving widow also belongs. They had 
12 children, namely: Elizabeth, wife of Byron 
O. Gothman. of St. Louis, Michigan: Ellen. 
wife of Edward Lord, of Standish. Michigan: 
Thomas M., of Bay City; Annie, teacher of 



music in Bay City; George, of Bay City; John 
W., of Bay City ; Charles C, our subject ; Dolly 
E., residing with her mother in Bay City; 
Frank F., of Bay City; Bessie, wife of James 
D. Scott, of Bay City; and Deliah and William 
Roswell who live at home. 

Charles C. Cuthbert was educated in the 
public schools. At the age of 16 j-ears he be- 
gan work in the cemeteries under C. D. Fisher 
and George D. Seaman, his first duties being 
the watering of the graves, and for the past 
10 years he has been connected with cemetery 
work, with the exception of his period of service 
in the Spanish- American War. In 1897 he en- 
listed in Company C, Third Infantry, Michigan 
National Guard, and the following year went 
through the Cuban campaign as a private of 
this company, which was one of the companies 
of the 33d Michigan Infantry, U. S. Volun- 
teers. Shortly after his return he was appointed 
corporal and about a year later was made a ser- 
geant. In 1902 he was made ist sergeant and 
served three years in that rank and then was 
appointed sergeant-major of the Third Bat- 
talion, Third Regiment and has held this posi- 
tion during two encampments. He is a mem- 
ber of Camp Sheridan, No. 5, National League 
of Veterans Sons; Gen. Henry Lawton Coiu- 
mand. No. 60, Spanish War Veterans; and 
Wenona Lodge, No. 221, I. O. O. F. 

In 1899 Mr. Cuthbert was made superin- 
tendent of Bay City's beautiful resting places 
for her dead. Since taking charge he has made 
many improvements, including the fencing of 
all the cemeteries, and, with his force of four 
experienced men. has made these spots all that 
the most critical could ask in the way of quiet 
beauty and orderly attractiveness, for the final 
home of their departed ones. Mr. Cuthbert 
has shown s]5ecial interest in caring for the 
sacred plot known as Soldiers' Rest, in Pine 
Ridge Cemetery, thereby fulfilling the wishes 



646 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



of e\ery citizen. He possesses taste and good 
judgment and liis long experience in this work 
makes his services ahnost invaluable. 

Mr. Cuthbert was married on January 24, 
1905, to Ida M. Pegg, who is a daughter of 
Jacob Pegg, of Bay City. They attend the 
First Congregational Church. 




OBERT R. LANE, president of the 
Bay City Business College, is one of 
the most enterprising citizens of Bay 
City. He was torn in Durham Dis- 
trict, Ontario, in 1864, and is a son of Robert 
and Ann (Bray)' Lane, whose union resulted 
in the birth of nine children. 

Mr. Lane received his early mental training 
in the public schools of Durham and Ontario 
districts and afterward attended the high 
schools at Bowmanville, Durham District, and 
Port Perry, Ontario District. He was princi- 
pal of a school in Durham District for three 
years, and taught for the same length of time 
in a Canadian business college. He then moved 
to Seattle, Washington, where he taught a short 
time. While there he opened up stenographic 
offices, in connection with which he did court 
work. He subsequently removed to Saginaw, 
Michigan, where he was principal of the Inter- 
national Business College until March, 1893. 
At that period he moved to Bay City and pur- 
chased the International Business College in 
the Averell Block. 

In 1896 Mr. Lane changed the location of 
the institution to the rooms above the Y. M. 
C. A. on Adams street and from there moved to 
his present location in the Washington Theatre 
Building, where he occupies the second and 
third floors, covering nearly 9,000 square feet. 
In 1898 the International Business Col- 
lege, of Bay City, Devlin's Business College, of 



Bay City and J. G. Lamsen's private school, in 
West Bay City, were consolidated under the 
name of the Bay City Business College, and the 
attendance has been increased by years of hard 
and earnest work, until in 1903 the number of 
pupils was 292. Many were placed in good 
positions in different parts of the country. 

Everything pertaining to the equipment of 
the institution is strictly modern. The cloak 
rooms and offices of the college are well lighted 
and ventilated. The rooms are divided into 
departments for commercial instruction, sten- 
ography and typewriting. The faculty, at pres- 
ent numbering five members, is selected from 
the very best of experienced teachers, and the 
sul)ject of this sketch himself possesses super- 
ior qualifications as a teacher, and brings to 
bear 21 years of ripe experience. He has been 
a special instructor in every branch of the work. 
He is also interested in other enterprises. More 
than 70 students from other business and short- 
hand schools have been in attendance at this 
institution, some of them having previously 
graduated elsewhere. 

Mr. Lane married Mary Oliver, a native of 
Chatham, Ontario, and their union has resulted 
in two children, — Marv and Beth. 




NDREW F. HOFMANN, manager 
and proprietor of The Valley Sheet 
Metal Works of Bay City, West 
Side, and one of the city's progres- 
sive and enterprising citizens, was born at 
Kochville, Michigan, March 26, 1878, and is a 
son of John L. and Minnie (Baumbach) 
(Wuepper) Hofmann. 

John L. Hofman. our subject's father, was 
born at Bayern, Germany, and lived in the city 
of Berlin until he was 25 years old. He then 
came to America, locating for a short season in 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



647 



Indiana, and then came to Bay City where he 
followed his trade of carpenter and millwright, 
but formerly had settled for a few years, on a 
farm. At one time he was a member of the 
Bay City Board of Public Works. He married 
Mrs. Minnie (Baumbach) Wuepper, widow of 
Lieut. John Wuepper. The three survivors of 
the family of Lieutenant Wuepper are: Ernes- 
tine, wife of Matthews Keopplinger, of Sagi- 
naw, ilichigan; Sophie, wife of Harry Hay- 
ward, of Buena Vista township. Saginaw 
County ; and John H., of Detroit. The ciiildren 
of Mr. and Mrs. Hofmann are : Louisa, wife of 
Henry L. Menthen, of Saginaw, Michigan ; 
George L., living at home; Andrew F.. of this 
sketch; August E., of Mayvillp, Michigan: and 
Minnie, living at home. Mr. and Mrs. Hof- 
mann are members of the Salzburg German 
Reform Churcii, of which Mr. Hofmann is a 
trustee. 

After completing the common-school 
course, our subject learned the trade of sheet 
metal work, with C. R. Laderach, of Salzburg, 
remaining with him three years and becoming 
an e.xpert, skilled workman. To gain exper- 
ience in all lines, he then worked for a year at 
Caro. Michigan, at Battle Creek and at St. 
Paul, Minnesota. Upon his return to Bay City 
where he desired to make his home, he entered 
the employ of Wilson & Wanless for a year and 
then with J. C. Weber for a few months. In 
1903, in partnership with Carl A. Mueller, of 
Joliet, Illinois, Mr. Hofmann opened The Val- 
ley Sheet Metal Work.s, and after si.x months 
he bought his partner's interest. Since then he 
has operated the works alone, doing general 
sheet metal work of all kinds on a large scale. 
He deals also in heating aparatus, this being 
an important branch in its season. His plant is 
well equipped and is a leading representative of 
the industry here. 

On September 29, 1904, Mr. Hofmann 



married Bertha Elizabeth Kleckner, who is a 
daughter of Israel Kleckner, of Cementon, Le- 
high County. Pennsylvania. Mr. and Mrs. 
Hofmann are members of the German Re- 
formed Church. He belongs to the Arbeiter 
Unterstuetzung Verein. Politicallv he is a 
stanch Republican. 




)OLPH FRANCIS, one of the pros- 
perous farmers and walued citizens 
of Gibson township, who owns a fine 
farm of 80 acres, situated in section 
29, was born near Montreal, Canada, in Febru- 
ary, 1850, and is a son of Adolph Francis. 

The parents of Mr. Francis both died in 
Alontreal, the mother at the age of 57 years, 
and the father at the age of 85 years. They 
were highly respected residents of that city 
and faithful members of the Catholic Church. 

Our subject's boyhood was spent in the 
city of Montreal and he attended school there. 
In 1873 'i^ came with his wife to Michigan. 
They resided in Bay City 12 years, then lived 
at Grayling, in Crawford County, until 1895, 
when they came to the present farm in Bay 
County. The whole place was then but a wil- 
derness of brush and timber, and before they 
could even put up a temporary home they were 
obliged to clear a space. Although before her 
marriage Mrs. Francis had been a school 
teacher, she cheerfully took upon herself many 
hard ta.sks and much physical labor. The re- 
sult is that the}- now ha\-e as comfortable and 
substantial a home as can be found in Gibson 
township and a farm which is productive and 
valual)le. 

In 1872 Mr. Francis married Virginia He- 
marre, who is a daughter of Herbert and Vir- 
ginia (Daniel) Hemarre. Mrs. Francis is a 
lady of superior education an«l she taught school 



648 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



both in Montreal and in the adjacent country. 
To this marriage 1 1 children were born : Jo- 
seph, born in Canada in 1873, who is a raih'oad 
man ; Rosa, Ada and Laura, all three deceased ; 
Frederick : George ; Edward : Frank, deceased ; 
Arthur; and Charles and Lidia, both deceased. 
Mr. and Mrs. Francis are members of the Cath- 
olic Church. 

Mr. Francis takes only a good citizen's in- 
terest in political affairs, but always casts his 
vote with the Republican party. He has en- 
couraged all agricultural movements in the 
township and belongs to the Grange and to the 
Gleaners. Honest, intelligent and industrious, 
a kind friend and a good neighbor, Mr. Francis 
enjoys the esteem of his fellow-citizens with 
whom he is on the most friendly terms. His 
pleasant hospitable home has many visitors. 



i 



m 



ENRY CLEMENTS, deceased, was 
one of the leading business men of 
Bay City for many years and was 
closely identified with almost every 
important phase of civic life. Mr. Clements 
was born in 1855 in New York City, and died 
in his magnificent home in Bay City, on Oc- 
tober 31. 1 90 1. He Avas a son of James and 
Agnes (McCready) Clements. 

James Clements was of English parentage 
and his wife of Connecticut ancestry. Mr. 
Clements, who was an expert machinist, after 
visiting a number of States, finally located at 
Ann Arbor, Michigan, for the purpose of in- 
stalling gas plants in divers localities. From 
Ann Arbor he removed to Bay City where he 
subsequently organized a company, largely 
made up of friends at Ann Arbor, and founded 
the important industry now known as The In- 
dustrial Works. He survived long enough to 



realize ample returns for his energy and enter- 
prise, and died at Ann Arbor, where several of 
his children reside. His family consisted of 
Mary, of Ann Arbor ; James, who died in South 
Africa ; Henry, our suliject : Ida, of Ann Arbor; 
and William, of Bay City. Mr. Clements was 
a man of sterling character and was intimately 
associated in friendship with his neighbor. 
Judge Thomas M. Cooley, of the Supreme 
Court of Michigan. 

Henry Clements was graduated in the liter- 
ary course of the University of Michig'an at 
Ann Arbor and returned to Bay City to enter 
his father's office in The Industrial Works. 
Finding this business environment congenial, 
he continued here and later purchased a one- 
half interest in the business, devoting the whole 
of his subsequent life to its expansion and in- 
terests. He finally purchased the whole plant, 
but continued to conduct the business under the 
name of James Clements & Son. At the time 
of his decease it had grown to be a business of 
vast proportions and wide connections. After 
his decease, his widow secured the services of 
her brother-in-law, Edward J. Bissell. attorney, 
to look after her interests in The Industrial 
Works, with the result that he saw such a fu- 
ture in the business that he gave up his law 
practice, and, with his son, purchased the plant. 

In 1882 Mr. Clements was married to 
Luella Hovey, who is a daughter of Dr. W. F. 
and Sarah (Stinson) Hovey, who had two 
daughters, viz : Mrs. Clements and Carrie, de- 
ceased, who was the wife of Edward J. Bis- 
sell. Mr. and Mrs. Clements had two chil- 
dren : Harold and Madeleine. The beautiful 
home, in which Mrs. Clements and her children 
reside, situated at No. 1.601 Center avenue. 
Bay City, is probably one of the best appointed 
ones in the city, adorned with everything to 
gratify the tastes of its cultured owners. It 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



649 



was erected in 1890, being the first of the many 
elegant mansions which have been built in this 
exclusive locality. The Clements family attend 
the First Presbyterian Church. 




RS. ELIZABETH LINDERMAN, 
who resides on her well-cultivated 
farm of 40 acres, situated in section 
26, Hampton township, is one of 
the old and respected residents of this section, 
having occupied her farm here since 1857. Mrs. 
Linderman was born August 18, 1834, in 
Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Germany, and is a 
daughter of Christian and Helena (Blake) 
Koch. 

Mrs. Linderman's parents lived and died in 
Germany. They had 1 1 children and Mrs. 
Linderman is one of three daughters. One 
brother. Henry Koch, came to .\merica with 
our subject and her first husband, in 1857. 

Mrs. Linderman was reared in her father's 
house and was taught all the accomplishments 
for which German housewives are noted the 
world over. When 20 years of age she mar- 
ried Ernest Blake, who was born in 181 5 at 
Wismar, Germany, \\nien they came to Amer- 
ica they settled immediately in Hampton town- 
ship. Bay County, Michigan, Mr. Blake pur- 
chasing the present farm of our subject, which 
at that time was entirely unimproved. He 
survived but two and a half years. Mrs. Lin- 
derman's second marriage was to another of her 
countrymen, Henry Linderman, who was born 
in Hanover, Germany, in 1834, and came to 
the United States when 25 years of age. Dur- 
ing the Civil War. Mr. Linderman went to De- 
troit and there enlisted for service in the Union 
Army. All trace of him was afterward lost 
and it is supposed that he was one of those re- 
ported missing, after some great battle. He 



left two sons : Harry, deceased ; and Ernest, 
born August 20, 1865, who operates the farm 
for his mother. It is a fertile, well-watered 
tract of land and under Mr. Linderman's ex- 
cellent management has proved very productive. 
Mrs. Linderman is widely known and very 
highly esteemed. She has seen very many won- 
derful changes take place in the county since 
she first settled here and she recalls manv very 
interesting events of the early days. 



ITZLAND L. WILSON. Few citi- 
zens of Bay County are better known 
than Fitzland L. Wilson, who has 
achieved success along many lines and 
stands to-day as a representative of the class 
known as self-made men. Mr. Wilson was 
born after the death of his father, at Akron, 
New York, February 24. 1838. 

The widowed mother took care of her fath- 
erless son until he had reached the age of nine 
years, and then the little lad started out to be a 
wage earner himself. His beginning was in a 
tanyard, where he was given his board and 
$2.50 per month for his services; but two 
months in this situation proved to him that he 
was not fashioned to be a successful tanner, 
and he engaged with a neighboring farmer to 
work during the summers and go to school dur- 
ing the winter seasons. Little by little his small 
earnings, providently saved, increased, so that 
by the time he was 18 years of age he felt justi- 
fied in going to .Akron and entering the L^nion 
School, paying for a part of his board and 
working for the other part. He followed out 
the same methods when, after .several seasons 
of farm work and study at night by himself, he 
entered Oberlin College, where he took a special 
teacher's course, not being able to take the full 
college course. 



650 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Mr. Wilson then entered into teaching as a 
profession and followed the same in different 
parts of Ohio, — in Delaware County, Pick- 
away County and in the city of Chillicothe. 
During- all this time he was husied in studying 
out and endeavoring to solve construction 
prohlems, his natural bent being in the direction 
of machinery, and he finally went into the 
bridge building on an Ohio railroad and was 
thus engaged in 1861, at the outbreak of the 
Civil War. 

This great national crisis found the young- 
teacher and embryo machinist and inventor a 
loyal, patriotic supporter of the government, 
and he enjoys the distinction of being the sec- 
ond man who enlisted in the "Continentals," the 
first company that went out fron-i Cleveland, 
for the 90-day service. This con-ipany re- 
mained at Camp Taylor from April until the 
middle of i\Iay, expecting to be mustered into 
the United States service, and during this 
period Captain Stacy came to the camp to get 
recruits to enter the Second Kentucky Regi- 
ment. Our subject was one of the 500 who 
went to Camp Clay where they remained until 
the new order of the government discharged all 
90-day men who did not care to enlist for three 
years or the duration of the war. Mr. Wilson 
decided to resume bnage building and he con- 
tinued until the road he was working on was 
captured in October, 1862, by the Confederate 
general, Kirby Smith. 

Mr. Wilson then returned to New York on 
a pass from Gen. Lew Wallace, giving him 
permission to leave Covington and Cincinnati, 
and in the metropolis he remaineil until late in 
the fall, when he came to Michigan to visit a 
half brother, L. D. Lighthall, a resident of Ing- 
ham County. In February, 1863, he reenlisted 
for service in the Union Army and was mus- 
tered into Company B, — Sixth Michigan Heavy 
Artillerv, which was sent to serve under Gen- 



erals Butler and Canby in the Gulf con-ipaign. 
The regiment was used in garrisoning- h'orts 
Morgan, Wagoner and Port Hudson, on the 
Mississippi and took part in the capture of Mo- 
bile. He was finally mustered out of the serv- 
ice on August 26, 1865, at Jackson, Michigan. 

After the close of his military career, Mr. 
Wilson went into the mill business at Macon, 
Lenawee County, ]\Iichigan, where he contin- 
ued for 20 months and then sold out his interest 
and moved to Ingham County. He then pur- 
chased a mill where he manufactured one of 
his own inventions which he had patented, the 
celebrated Wilson washboard, and continued in 
this industry until November, 1879. He had 
made many business friends by this time and 
shortly afterward was instrumental in organ- 
izing the Saginaw Barrel Company, a stock 
company. Mr. Wilson was elected superinten- 
dent of tlie work of this company and he re- 
mained a resident of Saginaw until May, 1882, 
when he built the Wilson hoop factory in West 
Bay City, which is now operated by the ("loldie 
Manufacturing Company. This n-iill was en- 
tirely equipped with machinery invented by Mr. 
Wilsoi-i, himself, and here were manufactured 
the first elm hoops ever made iii Bay County. 

Mr Wilson was always alive to all new in- 
dustries and when the beet sugar industry first 
attracted general attention, he was a leading in- 
vestigator of its possibilities. His technical 
knowledge soon assured him of future success 
in sugar making and in 1898 he entered into 
the business as an expert and has continuetl ever 
since. He put out a large acreage of his own 
land and rented properties in sugar beets and 
has proven the complete success of this indus- 
try, conducted on his lines. 

For the past 15 years Mr. Wilson has 
owned a magnificent farm of 240 acres, which 
is situated in sections 9 and 16, Llampton town- 
ship, where he has carried on general farming, 




< 



»■*■ - 







LUCIOUS W. TOBIAS 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



653 



stock-raising and fruit-growing, under the very 
best possible conditions, having spared neither 
time nor expense on his property. He has 
made this a model farm and lias expended over 
$5,000 in buildings. The farm is now under 
rental, he having retired from its active man- 
agement, his sugar interests having engaged his 
entire attention for some time. During 1900 
he was associated with the Lansing Sugar 
Company, of Lansing, Michigan, and traveled 
through the country, lecturing in its interests 
through Ingham, Shiawassee, Genesee, Liv- 
ingston and Jackson counties, placing before 
the farmers the advantages accruing from the 
culture of the sugar beet. His work met with 
much success. 

On iMarch 21, 1863, ]Mr. Wilson was united 
in marriage with Eleanor S. Reed, a lady 
whom he met in Ingham County while visiting 
his brother. Mrs. Wilson was born November 
29, 1840, in Huron County, Ohio, and is a 
daughter of James P. Reed, who removed from 
Ohio to Ingham County. Michigan, in 1849. 
Mr. and Mrs. Wilson have had these children : 
Carl F.. who is a mail carrier in West Bay 
City ; Alice L.. who is the wife of Lee E. Joslyn, 
one of the leading attorneys of Bay City ; 
Grace, who is the wife of William Crabb, of 
North Tonawanda, New York; James R., who 
is a farmer in Hampton township; Charles D., 
who is in business at Buffalo, New York ; Clara, 
who is the wife of John Ingersoll. teller of the 
Peoples' Savings Bank, of West Bay City ; and 
George M., who is a resident of Buffalo, New 
York. 

During all these years of activity, Mr. 
Wilson has continued to work at his various in- 
ventions and many of them are of a very prac- 
tical character and have been patented and are 
in use in many of the manufacturing centers. 
Although he has been an active supporter of the 
Republican party all his life, he has accepted 

85 



little in the way of political reward, his con- 
victions being those of principle. His first 
vote was cast for Abraham Lincoln and each 
successive Republican candidate has received 
his generous support. During his residence in 
Ingham County he served as a justice of the 
peaee, an office to which his sterling character, 
experience of men and things and his stern 
sense of justice, brought most desirable quali- 
fications. He belongs to H. P. Merrill Post, 
No. 419, G. A. R., of Bay City and is a valued 
comrade. His fraternal associations are mainly 
with the various Masonic bodies, — he holds 
membership in Wenona Lodge, No. 296, F. & 
A. M., of West Bay City ; and of Blanchard 
Chapter, No. 59, R. A. M.. of Bay City. 




UCIOUS W. TOBIAS, deputy United 
States marshal for 29 counties, com- 
prising the Eastern District of Mich- 
igan, whose portrait accompanies this 
sketch, has been identified with the business 
interests of Bay City since 1870. Mr. Tobias 
was born in 1856, at Chesaning, Saginaw 
County, Michigan, and is a son of Solomon 
and Sarah A. (Thayer) Tobias. 

The father of Mr. Tobias was born in Ash- 
tabula County, Ohio, in 1831, and died in 
Michigan in 1878. The mother was born in 
1829, in Pennsylvania, and died in 1896. The 
four surviving children are: Mrs. Mary A., 
Mrs. Jean, of Bay City ; Blanche, wife of Ed- 
ward S. Lattimore, of Bay City ; James Frank- 
lin, a general storekeeper in Beaver township, 
Bay County : and Lucious W., of this sketch. 
In early life Solomon Tobias was a lumberman 
and millwright. In 1854 he settled in Sagi- 
naw^ County, Michigan, where his youngest 
son was torn two years later. 

Our subject was educated in the common 



654 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



schoolsof Shiawassee County, tlie family having 
moved to Corunna in 1861, from which place 
he came to Bay City in 1S70. In looking about 
for a business opening, the best prospects 
seemed to be in the transfer line. He had little 
capital and began what developed into a large 
business with a one-horse dray. He was in- 
terested in this business from 1872 until 1902. 
Several years after his modest beginning, he 
found it necessary to have several vans built 
and about this time met William Jennison, who 
was on the point of starting into a general 
storage business. They joined capital and 
organized the Riverside Truck & Storage Com- 
pany, and continued in partnership, with Mr. 
Tobias as general manager, for seven years. 
Other duties pressed at this time and he gave 
up this business, having accumulated quite a 
fortune through his commercial enterprise. 

In 1874, Mr. Tobias entered the tire depart- 
ment and for 12 years held the position of cap- 
tain in the Second Ward. He gave 18 years 
of service to the department and laid out many 
of the plans which have made this branch of the 
city's work notably effective. In 1882, in part- 
nership with W. F. Miller, he purchased a 
livery business on Saginaw street. A short 
time after, he purchased Mr. Miller's interest 
and continued alone in the business until 1883. 

Politically, a strong Republican, he has ex- 
erted much influence in his part of the city and 
has filled a number of civic positions. In 1882 
he was elected constable of the Second Ward. 
He served two terms as supervisor of the Fifth 
Ward, and has been a member of the Board of 
Education for 12 years. In 1898 he entered 
the government service, being appointed United 
States deputy marshal by United States Mar- 
shal W. R. Bates, of Detroit. He has a large 
territory to cover, including 29 counties in the 
eastern part of Michigan. He is a man well- 
qualified for this responsible position. 



In 1877, Mr. Tobias was married to Eliza- 
beth A. Sears, and they have two daughters : 
Edith M., who married Charles A. Russell and 
has two children, — Lee and Efifa Elizabeth; 
and Effa, who is a student in the Bay City High 
School, of which her sister is a graduate. The 
handsome home of Mr. Tobias and family is 
situated at No. 400 Howard street, and is one 
noted for its hospitality. Our subject belongs 
to the leading fraternal societies, in which his 
genial personality makes him a favorite com- 
rade. He is one of Bay City's self-made men 
and commands the respect of his fellow-citizens 
and enjoys the esteem of hosts of friends all 
over the State. 




lOMAS FRANK MARSTON, one 
of Bay City's successful business 
men, treasurer and business manager 
of the Bay City Sanitary Milk Com- 
pany, Ltd., was born in Bay City, Michigan, 
March 15, 1869. and is a son of the late Hon. 
Isaac Marston, a member of the Supreme 
Court bench of Michigan from 1S75 to 1883, 
the year of his resignation from the bench, and 
also for a long term of years one of the leading 
members of the Bay County bar. His sketch 
may be found elsewhere in this work. 

Mr. Marston was reared in Bay City and 
attended school here, later taking a course in 
mechanical engineering at the Michigan Agri- 
cultural College and the University of Michi- 
gan and in agriculture at the University of 
Wisconsin. He then returned to his father's 
farm and still continues to operate it on ap- 
proved scientific principles. 

The Bay City Sanitary Milk Company, 
Ltd., was organized in May, 1902, by Oscar 
F. Meiselbach, William Cuthbert and Thomas 
F. Marston. The officers were Oscar F. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



-■00 



Meiselbach. chairman : William Culhbert, sec- 
retary ; and Thomas Frank Marston, treasurer 
and business manager. Mr. Cuthbert has since 
withdrawn and operates a milk business inde- 
pendently. This company not only controls a 
large portion of the city milk trade, running- 
five wagons and handling, both wholesale and 
retail, 375,000 pounds of milk a month, Init 
also manufactures ice cream and other by- 
products. Employment is given to 10 work- 
men. The industry is on the increase, the com- 
pany's products making an enlarged area of 
demand wherever they are known. The com- 
pany has clean, sanitary ([uarters and every de- 
vice and precaution is taken to make their 
products just what they are represented to be. 
Much of the success that has attended this laud- 
able industry is undoubtedly due to the busi- 
ness management and commercial integrity of 
Mr. Marston and Mr. Meiselbach. 

Mr. ;\Iarston has a pleasant home in Bay 
City, and has a family of four children : Helen, 
Sheldon, Frances Marian and Thomas I-'rank, 
Jr., The family attend the Presbyterian Church. 
Mr. Marston served si.x years on the State 
Board of Agriculture, by appointment from 
Governor Hazen S. Pingree, and was president 
of the board the last two years. In 1905 he 
was again appointed a member of this board. 




01 IX C. ARNOLD, one of the well- 
known ctizens and first class farmers 
of Frankenlust township, owning a 
well-improved farm of over 100 acres 
in sections 6, 7 and 8, township 13, range 5, 
was tern in Frankenlust township, October 25. 
1857, and is a son of Michael and Mary Bar- 
bara (Appold) Arnold. 

The parents of Mr. .\rnold were born at 
Baiern. Germany, the father in 1827, and the 
mother in 1830. The former died in Franken- 



lust township, aged 42 years, and the mother, 
in 1895, aged 65 years. They had these chil- 
dren : John, of Frankenlust township : George, 
of Saginaw County; John C, of this sketch; 
Michael, of Saginaw County ; John (jeorge. of 
Saginaw County; and Martin, of Saginaw. 

Mr. Arnold was reared on his father's farm 
and obtained his education in the local schools. 
His life has been devoted mainly to farming, 
although in young manhood he worked for a 
time in the sawmills. His father came to Bay 
County in 1852, after completing his term of 
service in the German Army, and took up the 
present farm of our subject from the govern- 
ment. It was all wild, uncultivated land at 
that time, but now is one of the best farms in 
the township. The early death of the father 
threw much responsibility upon bis sons. Our 
subject did a great deal of the clearing and has 
erected all of the fine modern buildings, which 
make such an attractive appearance. In 1900 
the handsome residence was completed and 
other improvements have been added, making a 
home of much comfort and one that is very 
presentable. 

On May 6, 1881, Mr. Arnold was married 
to Margaret Kuch, who was born in Franken- 
lust township, August 6, 1859, and is a daugh- 
ter of John and Anna Barbara (Ziegler) Kuch, 
who came from Germany among the \-ery first 
settlers and established a home here in 1846, 
where the father died aged 85 years and the 
mother, aged 73 years. They were highly re- 
spected people, worthy members of the German 
Lutheran Church. Mr. and Mrs. Arnold also 
lielong to this church and he is extending a 
liberal, helping band in the erection of the 
new church edifice. Politically he is a Repub- 
lican. Mr. and ]\Irs. Arnold have two chil- 
dren: George, born March 11. 1882, and Mary 
Katherina Barbara, born June 15, 1884. both 
of whom live at home. 



656 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 




HELL H. THOMPSON, a promising 
young attorney-at-la\v, of Bay City, 
was born in Bay City, July 2, 1877. 
He is a son of Joseph and Helen E. 
(Babcock) Thompson, and a grandson of John 
Thompson. 

John Thompson came from Canada and lo- 
cated in Michigan in the "forties." He served 
a full term in the Union Army during the Civil 
War. He was in General Custer's command and 
participated in Sherman's "March to the Sea." 
Joseph Thompson, who came to Bay County 
in the "fifties," died in 1892 at the age of 45 
years. He had three brothers who served their 
country in the Civil War. The only one of 
John Thompson's sons now living is a resident 
of Duluth, Minnesota. 

Dell H. Thompson's mother is a native of 
Washtenaw County, Michigan. She is now 
living in Bay City and is about 56 years old. 
Her ancestors were soldiers in the Revolution- 
ary War. She had three sons, two of whom 
died in infancy. 

The subject of this sketch was reared and 
schooled in Bay City. He attended the Uni- 
versity of Michigan, where he was graduated 
from the law department in 1902. He has 
since acquired a good general practice in Bay 
City. His offices are at No. 217 Fifth avenue. 
Politically, Mr. Thompson is a Republican. 
His religious views are in accordance with the 
doctrines of the Presbyterian Church. He be- 
longs to the Delta Chi college fraternity. 




OHN H. EMERY, manager of the 
house of John H. Emery & Company, 
leading retail dealers in coal and wood 
in West Bay City, Michigan, was born 
July 6, 1865, at Girard, Erie County, Pennsyl- 
vania, and is a son of John and Sophronia J. 
(Kirkland) Emery. 



The Emery family is of English extraction 
and many generations were born and reared in 
the neighborhood of Red Line Square, Lon- 
don. It has always been a musical family and 
a number of its members have been connected 
with the orchestras of prominent London 
theatres. The name of John has appeared in 
every generation as far back as can be traced. 
The first of the family to cross the Atlantic 
was our subject's grandfather, John Emery, 
who was born in London and emigrated to 
Prescott, Ontario, where he operated a general 
store and was identified with musical circles. 
He married Ann Barrett, bornin England, but 
a resident of Prescott, and died when his son 
John was small. 

John Emery, father of our subject, was bom 
at Prescott, Ontario, March 3, 1839, but was 
reared mainly at Ogdensburg, New York. 
There he learned the trade of millwright which 
he has followed more or less ever since. He 
resided in a number of places as his work de- 
manded and was residing at Gir-ard, Pennsyl- 
vania, when our subject was born. He then 
moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and three 
years later, about 1880, came to Bay City, 
which has been his home ever since although 
his work takes him all over the country. He 
has erected many mills in difl^erent sections. He 
married first Sophronia J. Kirkland, a daugh- 
ter of David Kirkland of Girard, Pennsylvania, 
and three of their six children survive, viz : 
John H., of this sketch; Edwin R. : and Belle, 
wife of Walter C. Foote. of Pittsburg. Penn- 
sylvania. For his second wife Mr. Emery 
married Alice Green, of Bay City, and they 
have two children : Kitty Faye and Lottie Lee. 
Both Mr. and Mrs. Emery are members of the 
Central Methodist Episcopal Church of Bay 
City, in which Mr. Emery is a steward. 

Our subject was yet small when his parents 
settled at Grand Rapids and there he attended 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



657 



school. After the death of his mother, the 
family removed to Bay City. When about 16 
years of age he commenced saiHng on the 
Great Lakes, I)eginning; in a humble position 
and working- his way up until he became cap- 
tain of both sailing vessels and steamships. In 
1 89 1 he left the water and started into a coal 
business alone, but later associated with him 
Capt. Peter C. Smith, under the firm name of 
J. H. Emery & Company. They handle coal, 
wood and builders' supplies, their office and 
yard being located on East Midland street, cor- 
ner of Williams, on the West Side. Mr. Emery 
is also the patentee and manufacturer of the 
"Emery Cement Brick Machine," an in\ention 
which promises to revolutionize the manufac- 
ture of brick. It is simply constructed but an- 
swers every purpose. 

Mr. Emery married Catherine Herrick, 
who is a daughter of John Herrick of West 
Bay City and they have one son, Herrick. The 
family attend the Presbyterian Church. 

Mr. Emery's fraternal connections are with 
Wenona Lodge, No. 221, I. O. O. F., and the 
Modern Woodmen of America. He is recog- 
nized as one of the progressive and enterpris- 
ing business men of the city. He owes noth- 
ing to luck or circumstances, having made his 
own way in the world and accomplished much 
through his energy and native ability. 




ON. ISAAC MARSTON, late asso- 
ciate justice of the Supreme Court of 
Michigan and an able and forceful 
member of the bar, achieved prom- 
inence and a State wide reputation as a jurist. 
He was born in County .\rmagh, Ireland, Jan- 
uary 3, 1839, and died Octoljer 31. 1891. at 
Bay City, where his legal career had really 
commenced 29 years before. For much of the 



characterization that we are enabled to give in 
this brief sketch, we are indebted to an article 
published in TJic Inlander, the official organ of 
the University of Michigan, that was written 
b}' Hon. Thomas M. Cooley, who was asso- 
ciated with Judge Marston on the bench of the 
Supreme Court. 

With tlie utmost propriety may we refer to 
Judge Marston as a self-made man and in do- 
ing so use the term in the strictest sense to 
which usage commonly limits it. He had the 
benefits of no such adventitious aids as inher- 
ited wealth, influential connections or friends, 
or fortunate accidental circumstances ; he laid 
the foundations of his fortune in his own per- 
sonal diligence and built upon these, relying 
for success entirely upon most vigorous and 
judicious use of the advantages which in the 
State of his residence are offered with an equal 
liberality to every member of society. 

Judge Marston's father, Thomas Marston, 
was born in England, but removed to Ireland, 
where he was married and resided the re- 
mainder of his life. He owned a small estate 
upon the income of which he lived, but his 
means were so restricted that from the first it 
was certain that Isaac could look to him for 
only the most meager assistance. While at his 
death Thomas Marston did not leave a large 
estate, our subject's mother sent her son $1,200 
after his marriage. Mrs. Marston, whose 
maiden name w'as Amelia Purdy, died about 
1898, aged 96 years. 

At the age of 13. Isaac Marston was ap- 
prenticed to a grocer with whom he remained 
for three years, but the prospect of such a start 
in life was not flattering, for it was hard work 
from the outset and the future could scarcely 
promise more than a scanty subsistance. With 
a view to bettering his circumstances, he came 
to America and made his way to Michigan, 
making his liome with an uncle at Southfield, 



65S 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Oakland County, Andrew Muldragh by name. 
In order to find immediate means of support, 
he farmed with his uncle and cousins and with 
neighbors, attending school during the winter 
sessions, until he reached the age of 20 years. 
By this time he had determined in his own mind 
that he should take up the law as his life work. 

When the law department of the University 
of Michigan was organized in 1859, young 
Marston went to Ann Arbor that he might 
have the benefit of the advantages the law school 
was expected to afford. To the resident pro- 
fessor, when he introduced himself, he frankly 
stated that his means were extremely limited, 
giving this as the reason for the seeking of em- 
ployment during his attendance at the school, 
whereby he might help the defraying of his 
necessary expenses. He endeared himself to 
all the instructors, who saw that while his ed- 
ucational advantages had been limited, he was 
fully determined to overcome them. He 
quickly showed himself to be industrious, with 
a cjuick and accurate grasp of legal principles. 
With his fellow-students he was always a fav- 
orite, for he was of a cheerful and bouyant dis- 
position and as companionable as he was atten- 
tive to his studies. Upon taking his diploma in 
1861, Mr. Marston went to the little village of 
Alma. Gratiot Count)', Michigan, where he 
opened an office, but accidentally fire soon de- 
stroyed this office and his few books. He re- 
moved to Ithaca, in the same county, but did 
not find there the promising location that he 
had expected. Altogether he practiced in Gra- 
tiot County for over one year. 

In the summer of 1862 Mr. Marston came 
to Bay City, and after practicing alone for a 
short time, formed a partnership with Herschel 
H. Hatch, under the firm name of Marston &. 
Hatch. This was a fortunate move for him, 
as the town was a growing place, with a con- 
siderable and increasing business, and his part- 



ner a man of ability and well read in the law. 
The firm was not long in laying the foundations, 
and retainers soon came to them from consid- 
erable distances. Their regular legal business 
was not, however, so exacting as to preclude 
Mr. Marston from acting for a tiine as justice 
of the peace. For one session he served as a 
Representative in the State Legislature and for 
one term held the office of prosecuting attorney 
of Bay County. He also filled, by appoint- 
ment from Governor Bagley, a vacancy that oc- 
curred in the office of Attorney-General of the 
State. A few years after the original firm of 
Marston & Hatch was formed, Edgar A. Cooley 
became a partner and the firm name was 
changed to Marston, Hatch & Cooley. 

When Judge Christiancy left the Supreme 
Court in 1875 to take his place in the United 
States Senate, Mr. Marston was nominated by 
the Republicans and elected to the vacant place 
that he first filled for a short time by appoint- 
ment from the Governor. To obtain the nom- 
ination no considerable canvass was made by 
his friends on his behalf; the office seemed to 
come to him naturally as a recognition of his 
professional prominence in his section of the 
State, which was then unrepresented on the 
bench. His own sterling qualities brought him 
the office. His associates when he took his seat 
were James V. Campbell, Benjamin F. Graves 
and Thomas M. Cooley. Two of these had been 
his preceptors at Ann Arbor and all of them 
knew him well as a lawyer and were well 
pleased with his selection. They knew that 
they were to expect in him an industrious and 
painstaking associate and that the manner in 
which he would discharge his judicial duties 
would be alike honorable to himself and useful 
to the public. Coming to the judicial office, 
Judge Marston brought as part of his endow- 
ment two qualities always indispensable if the 
best results are to be looked for ; the first, a 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



659 



sterling integrity, ;uul the second a judicial 
temperament. Quoting the words of Judge 
Cooley : "Judge Marston was a party man al- 
ways, but the judicial office had come to him 
wliolly free from any improper obligation, real 
or suspected, and no opponent feared or no 
supporter could hope for partial rulings. He 
had strong views of the relationship of the law 
to public morals but in so far as he was now to 
deal with them judicially he knew very well 
that he was to do so under rules which the 
usages of his race embodied in the common 
law or the voice of the Legislature, speaking 
by its statutes, had prescribed for him ; and no 
partialities or preposessions could incline him 
to such usurpation of judicial power as is 
always present when the law is given an effect 
which is not within its true meaning. But, 
while he would not attempt the impossible task 
of giving support to public morality by false 
opinions, he did not fail at all times and under 
all circumstances to give such example, in his 
own official conduct, of sturdy uprightness and 
integrity as would, in its influence upon public 
morality, be of the very highest value. The 
legal opinions of Judge Marston are notable for 
brevity and clearness, and for an evident pur- 
pose to make them express the exact idea he 
had in mind." His duties on the bench were 
discharged to the public's entire satisfaction and 
he was elected for the second time by popular 
vote. He did not fill out his term of office, re- 
signing in 1883 because of a fear that the state 
of his health was becoming precarious and a 
feeling that he ought, in justice to his family, 
to go back to the bar in order that he might be 
able to make for them a better provision than 
the compensation made to him by the State 
would render possible. 

Upon leaving the bench. Judge Marston re- 
moved to Detroit and resumed practice at the 



bar, which soon became large and remunera- 
tive. It soon became evident, however, that the 
seeds of pulmonary disease were in his sys- 
tem ; necessarily his practice was embarrassed 
by this state of affairs, and it was not long 
before it was seen that it must be given up. 
With the utmost courage and cheerfulness he 
struggled against surrender until 1890, when 
he returned to Bay City and took up his resi- 
dence upon a farm nearby, in the hope that ag- 
ricultural pursuits might be less exacting in 
their demands upon his remaining strengtii. 
The end approached steadily but surely, and 
cheerfully to the last he met the final summons. 
He left behind him many dear friends who will 
never cease, as long as life lasts, to cherish with 
affection and respect the recollection of his 
sterling sense and strong manly qualities. 

On May i, 1862, the subject of this sketch 
married Emily Sullivan, daughter of Adam D. 
Sullivan, of Southfield, Oakland County. 
Mrs. Marston who is an esteemed resi- 
dent of Bay City, was born May 17, 
1843. Her great-grandfather on her father's 
mother's side was Peter Lowe. He re- 
moved from Newburgh. New York, to Oak- 
land County, Michigan, in 1830. He drew^ a 
pension for his services in the Revolutionary 
War. Adam D. Sulli\an was a son of Cor- 
nelius and Elizabeth (Lowe) Sullivan. Be- 
cause of the death of his parents when he was 
young in years, he lived with his grandparents 
Lowe, by whom he was reared. Of the five 
children born to Judge and Mrs. Marston, four 
grew to maturity, namely: Amelia, wife of 
James B. Shearer, of Bay City ; Thomas Frank, 
of Bay City, a sketch of whom appears else- 
where in this work; George Arthur, an attor- 
ney-at-law of Detroit; and Charles Isaac, of 
Detroit. About two years before his death, 
Judge Marston joined the Westminster Pres- 



66o 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



byterian Church of Detroit, of which his wife 
was also a member. Slie is now a member of 
the First Presbyterian Church of Bay City. 



CTAVE TURMELL, a substantial ag- 
riculturist of Fraser township, whose 
farm is located in section 5, was born 
in the Province of Quebec, Canada, 
in 1842, and is a son of Francis and Maggie 
(Fecto) Turmell, who were natives of Quebec, 
and were engaged in farming. 

Francis Turmell and his wife came from 
Quebec to Bay City in 1880, and subsequently 
bought a farm in Williams township, near Au- 
burn. The father died in 1892 at Auburn at 
the age of 83 years. His wife died on the farm 
of her son, Octave, in 1903, when 90 years old. 

Mr. Turmell lx)ught his farm of 80 acres in 
section 5. Fraser township, in the spring of 
I goo. He is engaged in general farming and 
stock-raising. 

The subject of this sketch has been three 
times married. His first wife was Virginia 
Labie, whom he married in Quebec, and who 
died in Canada, leaving one child, — Jeddie. His 
second wife was Mary Labie, who died in Bay 
City, Michigan, in 1885, leaving one child, — 
Edmund. For his third wife, Mr. Turmell 
married Rosetta Labie, a daughter of John and 
Susan (Turcott) Labie, natives of Quebec, who 
now live in Bay City. 

From the third marriage seven children have 
resulted, namely : Valeta, born in December. 
1886; Joseph, born in July, 1890; Rena, born 
in January, 1892: Fred, born in November, 
1893; Leva, born in December, 1895; Deneige, 
born in October, 1897; and Ernest, born in Oc- 
tober, 1902. Politically, Mr. Turmell is a 
Democrat. He and his family are members of 
the Catholic Church. 




EORGE B. HUBBELL, postmaster 
at Colden, Williams township, where 
he also operates a general store, is 
one of the well-known residents of 
the western part of the county. Mr. Hub- 
bell was born November 8, 1864, at Holly, 
Oakland County, Michigan, and is a son of 
Charles and Angeline (Yorton) Hubbell. 

The father of Mr. Hubbell was born in 
1842 in Connecticut, and came to Michigan in 
1861. Soon after he enlisted in Company F, 
Seventh Reg. Michigan \'ol. Inf., as a private. 
He served under General McClellan in the 
Army of the Potomac and participated in all 
the battles of that memorable time, and was 
wounded at the battle of Antietam. After three 
years of service, during which period he was 
promoted for gallantry to the rank of cor- 
poral, he was honorably discharged in 1863. 
He is a valued member of Dwight May Post, 
No. 67, G. A. R. He is one of a family of 
seven children, the others being : Samuel W., 
of Unionville, a well-known politician of Tus- 
cola County, Michigan; John E., deceased 
April 20, 1904, who was engaged in a milling 
business at Cedro Wooley, Washington; Julia, 
who is the wife of N. Stewart, of Cairo, Mich- 
igan ; Lucy, who is the wife of Morris Van 
Order, of Beaver Dam, New York; Sarah, de- 
ceased, who was the wife of George W. Brown, 
of Harrison, Clare County, Michigan ; and 
Edward L„ of West Bay City. 

At Holly. Michigan on July 3, 1863, 
Charles Hubbell was united in marriage with 
Angeline Yorton. and six children were born 
to this union: George B., of this sketch: Nora 
(Mrs. James Lamay), of Midland, Michigan; 
Fayette, a farmer living near Midland; Myron, 
who died at Saginaw November 28, 1904, and 
was interred at Midland ; Annie, wife of Fred 
Morden, of Merrill, Saginaw County: and 
Lena, a maiden of 15 years, residing with her 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



66i 



parents at Midland. Charles Hubhell has been 
engaged in farming since the close of the Civil 
War, but recently retired to Midland, after 
selling his farm. 

Our subject followed the milling trade with 
his uncle, John E. Hubbell. for i8 years and 
then bought 40 acres of land in Williams town- 
ship, which he operated as a farm for five years. 
After disposing of that he moved to the village 
of Colden, where he has since carried on a gen- 
eral store. He has always been active in local 
politics, but votes independently. On August 
28, 1899 he was appointed postmaster of the 
village by the late President McKinley, and 
was reappointed to the office on August 28, 
1903, by President Roosevelt. Mr. Hubbell 
has proved himself a very satisfactory official 
and enjoys the respect of all who have public or 
private business with him. He is a member of 
the Maccabees. 

On April 17, 1885, Mr. Hubbell was united 
in marriage to Rose Woltz, a daughter of 
Henry and Hannah (Wrenz) Woltz, natives 
of Germany, who came to America in 1844. 
Mr. Woltz died February 6. 1905. and Mrs. 
Woltz died when her daughter, Mrs. Hubbell, 
was but three years old. Mr. and Mrs. Hubl^ell 
have one child, — Lulu May, born July 3, 1897. 
They have a very pleasant home. 




^:ANK p. YOUXG. a well-known citi- 
zen of Bay City, is a member of a 
family which has been prominently 
identified with successful business en- 
terprises here since his grandfather. George 
Young, came here in 1870. Frank P. Young 
was born at Albany, New York, October 21, 
1869, and is a son of George H. and Mary 
(Phillips) Young. 

George Young, the paternal grandfather, 



was born in Scotland, January 12, 1820, and 
came to America in 1840. He located at Al- 
bany, New York, where he worked first as a 
grocery clerk and later went into business for 
himself, operating a wholesale and retail gro- 
cery at Albany until 1870, w'hen he came to 
llav City. He was a very successful business 
man and became interested in financial afifairs 
in Bay City, which led to his organizing the 
Bay City Bank, of which he continued vice- 
president until his death on January 18, 1890. 
In 1845 lie married Annie McCormick, who 
was a daughter of William McCormick, of 
Bethlehem, New York, and they had four chil- 
dren : George H., Charles E., William A. and 
Walter D. The mother of this family died 
January 12, 1905, aged 78 years. She was a 
woman of strong and beautiful character. Until 
advanced years caused her retirement from ac- 
tive church work, she was very prominent in 
the benevolent and social enterprises of the 
First Presbyterian Church, of which she was a 
devoted member. 

Frank P. Young was but two and a half 
years old when his parents brought him to Bay 
City, where he was educated in the common 
and high schools. Later he became a clerk in 
the Bay City Bank, of which his father is 
president, and remained there six years and 
then entered into partnership with his uncles, 
Walter D. and C. E. Young, who were doing 
business under the firm name of Young Broth- 
ers. Upon the admission of our subject, the 
firm style became Young Brothers & Company, 
which continued until 1896, when he became 
sole proprietor. He now conducts the business 
under his own name. This business is one of 
the largest retail ones in the city. Coal, wood, 
sewer pipe and masons' building supplies are 
dealt in. It was established originally in 1880 
bv T. R. Dennison, who was succeeded in 1889 
by Young Brothers. In addition to this busi- 



663 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



ness Mr. Young has other interests, being sec- 
retary, treasurer and general manager of the 
Michigan Coal Mining Compan}-. He pos- 
sesses the necessary equipments for business 
success and enjoys the confidence of the public. 

Mr. Young married Sarah Davidson, who 
is a daughter of James Davidson of Bay City 
and they have three children : Davidson, Miriam 
and Frank P., Jr. The family attend the 
Protestant Episcopal Church. 

Mr. Young is prominent in Masonic cir- 
cles, being a member of Bay City Lodge No. 
129, F. & A. M., and of higher Masonic bodies 
at Bay City, which go to the i8th degree. He 
has taken higher degrees, to the 32d inclusive, 
in Michigan Sovereign Consistory S. P. R. S., 
at Detroit, of which he is a member. He is also 
a member of Moslem Temple, A. A. O. N. 
M. S., at Detroit. 




SlOHN W. EGBERT, who owns a f^rst- 
class farm of 40 acres, situated in sec- 
tion 6, Portsmouth township, is a 
well-known and highly respected res- 
ident of the township. Mr. Egbert was born 
November 29, i860, near Hamilton, Canada, 
and is a son of John and Elizabeth (Newton) 
Egbert. 

The family is of English extraction. The 
paternal grandfather, John Egbert, was born 
and died in Canada, his home being near St. 
Catharines, Ontario. There the father of our 
subject, also named John Egbert, was born in 
182 1 ; he died in Portsmouth township, Bay 
County, Michigan, December 12, 1901. He 
was a man of more than usual intelligence and 
possessed chemical knowledge and business 
faculties which enabled him to become a suc- 
cessful match manufacturer. He was one of 
the pioneers in this business and on several oc- 



casions nearly lost his life in experimenting. 
He was a born mechanic and understood many 
lines of manufacture. He came to Bay County 
in 1863 and, with his other industries, opened 
up a boarding house near Essexville for labor- 
ers in the lumber camps. This he conducted for 
some 10 years and then removed to Portsmouth 
township and settled down to farming. He 
was a very moral man and in his earlier days 
was a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, but in his later years w-as affiliated with 
the Church of the Latter Day Saints. 

The mother of our subject was born in On- 
tario, Canada, and died at Essexville, Bay 
County, on January 24, 1869, aged 33 years. 
She was the mother of three children, namely: 
Herman zA.ugustus, who died aged one year ; 
John \V., the subject of this sketch; and Flora 
Marinda, who was accidentally burned to death 
when four years old. 

John ^V. Egbert was only three years of 
age when his parents came to Bay County, in 
which his home has been ever since, although 
his residence has not always been here. ]\Ir. 
Egbert has not always been a farmer. When 
he was 18 years of age he became a sailor on 
the Great Lakes and for the past 25 years has 
spent every summer on the w-ater. His present 
farm, now so well-cultivated, was totally unim- 
proved when his father bought it of Henry 
Brandt in 1869. The whole region was then 
covered with woods and no roads had been cut 
by which the new owners could reach their 
property. Mr. Egbert's father cleared this land 
and put it under cultivation and also built the 
present substantial house and barn. It is a 
valuable property and Mr. Egbert carries on 
general farming here, raises some stock and 
does a little dairying. 

In 1882 Mr. Egbert was married to Lucy 
Neadow, who was born September 15, 1841, 
in Ontario, and is a daughter of Herman Has- 



AND RErRESEXTATIYE CITIZENS. 



663 



kins and Elizabeth (Amer) Xeadow. both of 
whom were born in Canada. Mr. Egbert is a 
member of the Gleaners. 




)X. COLUMBUS V. TYLER. M. D. 
Among the many men who have at- 
tained justifiable prominence in Bay 
City, none are remembered with more 
admiration and esteem than the late Dr. Colum- 
bus V. Tyler, who, as physician, surgeon and 
statesman, was a representative man in city, 
county and State for so many years. Dr. Tyler 
was born in 1S25 at Auburn, Xew York, and 
was a son of Lewis S. and Martha (Eldridge) 
Tyler. 

The family is of Xew England origin. El- 
liott Tyler, the grandfather of Dr. Tyler, was 
born in Connecticut in 1781, and died in 1856. 
He accompanied his parents to New York, 
where he engaged in agricultural pursuits all 
his life. 

Lewis S. Tyler, father of Dr. Tyler, was 
born in the hamlet of Nuntz, Cayuga County, 
New York, in 1804, and died at Grand Blanc, 
Michigan, in 1871. Very early in its settle- 
ment, among the pioneer families from the 
East, the Tylers removed to Genesee County, 
Michigan, and located near Grand Blanc. 

In that county, with scanty educational ad- 
vantages, was Columbus V. Tyler, the future 
eminent physician, reared. Much of his youth 
until he was 21 years old, was spent in assisting 
to clear the farm. This life had no charms for 
him and when his uncle. Dr. N. B. Eldridge, 
gave Columbus an opportunity to study medi- 
cine with him, the offer was eagerly accepted. 
Dr. Eldridge was located at Lapeer and there 
the youth completed his medical studies and 
settled then at Flushing, Genesee County, to 
practice. This was in 1850 and he remained 



there until 1869. In addition to attending to a 
large practice, he served as postmaster from 
1856 to i860. Although an old-line Democrat, 
he was fully in accord with the administration 
during the Civil War, and served at Flushing 
as a deputy United States marshal, and, as 
such, took the census of the northern district of 
Genesee County. While at Flushing he organ- 
ized the first Masonic lodge there, and through 
his efforts an effective medical society was or- 
ganized in Genesee Coimty. 

In July, 1869, Dr. Tyler came to Bay City 
and almost immediately took a leading position 
in public and professional life. He served as 
presiflent of the Bay County Medical Society 
and was a member of the judicial council and 
the first vice-president of the [Michigan State 
Medical Society and was also a member of the 
X^ational Sanitary Association. In 188,3 li^ 
was appointed a member of the State Board of 
Health by Governor Begole, and filled the office 
until October. 1888, when he resigned on ac- 
count of ill health. He had suffered from a 
fall which produced an abcess in his side which 
was subsequently the cause of his death. In 
1885 Dr. Tyler was appointed one of the board 
of medical examiners for pension claimants and 
held the ofiice until October, 1888. 

Dr. Tyler was not only a man of command- 
ing presence and magnificent physique, being 
six feet tall and weighing 200 pounds, but he 
was also one of the brainiest men in public life 
in Bay County in his time. In 1877 he was 
elected to the State Senate and in 1878 he was 
a candidate for Congress and failed of receiving 
the nomination by but a few votes. In 1879 
Dr. Tyler was returned to the Senate and again 
in 1889. receiving at the last election 5,892 
votes, although the district was strongly Re- 
publican. John McKim, the Republican and 
Union Labor candidate, received 5.067 votes, 
and David .-\. Ross, Prohibitionist, received 148 



664 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



votes. During this last session of the Senate, 
he served on the following committees : Coun- 
ties and townships, saline interests, roads and 
bridges and religious and benevolent societies. 

Dr. Tyler was married to Marie Antoinette 
Herrick, who was a daughter of Truman Her- 
rick. She was born in Connecticut, but at the 
time of her marriage resided in Genesee 
County. They had three children of whom the 
only survivor and the only one who reached 
maturity is Frank Elliott Tyler, of Bay City. 
Both Dr. Tyler and wife were consistent, 
worthy and valued members of the First Pres- 
byterian Church. 

After the death of Dr. Tyler on June i, 
1889, a special meeting of the Bay County 
Medical Society was held to take action in re- 
gard to his decease, and speeches were made by 
Drs. Landon, Newkirk, Baker, Erwin and 
Carron, They remarked upon the purity of 
Dr. Tyler's professional character, his wide- 
spread generosity and the general sorrow that 
was felt by the community at large. It was 
voted that the society attend the funeral in a 
body and the following resolutions were 
adopted, a copy of which was presented to his 
family : 

IVhcrcas, Our esteemed brother physician, Dr. C. 
V. Tyler, has been removed from our midst by death, 
and 

Whereas, We would give expression to the sincere 
sorrow we feel in his loss and indicate by appropriate 
resolutions our esteem for him as a man and as a 
physician, be it 

Resolved. That in our deceased brother. Dr. Tyler, 
we recognized one who was a gentleman, an able physi- 
cian and a sympathizing friend and neighbor, whose 
pure character and regular deportment through life 
commands respect and may well be emulated by all. 

Resolved, That we extend to his family our heart- 
felt sympathy in their great bereavement. 

Resolved. That a copy of the foregoing be pre- 
sented to the family of the deceased and printed in the 
Bay City Tribune. 



Dr. Tyler may well be said to have been 
one of the best citizens of the State in the sense 
of always furthering her interests. His public 
life was as sincere and honest as was his private 
career and his repeated elections and appoint- 
ments to positions of trust showed that he con- 
tinued to have the esteem and confidence of the 
county. On all subjects pertaining to the pub- 
lic health, sanitation, water supply, epidemics, 
etc., he was an authority, keeping in close touch 
with the most advanced thought on these sul> 
jects, and his position as such was acknowl- 
edged by the most eminent of Michigan's pro- 
fessional men. 




rSTACHE MASSON, Jr., an indus- 
trious and worthy farmer, whose 
homestead is situated in section 9, 
Fraser township, was born in Mont- 
real, Province of Quebec, October 4, 1849. He 
is a son of Eustache and Mary [De Lome) 
Masson. Both of his parents died in Montreal, 
— his father in his 75th year, and his mother, 
when she was 45 years old. 

The subject of this sketch attended school 
near Montreal, and came to Bay City, Michi- 
gan, in 1865. He cooked in the lumber camps 
during the w-inter months for 22 years, and in 
summer worked in sawmills. In 1891 he 
bought his farm of 40 acres in Fraser town- 
ship, and has built a fine dwelling and a con- 
venient barn. He is engaged in general farm- 
ing and raising stock. 

Mr. Masson has been twice married. In 
1882, he married Oxile Sharkey, a daughter of 
Calias Sharkey, who lives near Bay City. Six 
children resulted from this union, namely: 
Louis. Melvina, William, Henry, Amendine 
and Oxile. Louis keeps a hotel in Beaver town- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



665 



sliip. He married Ida Bennett, and kas one 
cliild, — Norien. Melvina married Thomas 
Parry, and lives in Massachusetts. She has 
three cliiiihxn, — Henry, Charabelle and an in- 
fant. Oxile married Amos Foche, and has 
three children, — Clara, Glendolia and Lulu. 
William. Henry and Amendine are deceased. 
The mother of these children died March 27, 
1884. 

For his second wife, Mr. Masson married 
Elsere Turmell, a daughter of Thomas and 
Amy (Belodo) Turmell. Mr. Masson is a 
Republican in his political opinions, and in re- 
ligious belief is a Catholic. 




HILLIP MARTENS, one of the lead- 
ing citizens of Frankenlust township, 
and its present township clerk, was 
bom in Phenish, Prussia, Germany, 
March i, 1849. He is a son of John and Mary 
.Anna (Schmidt) Martens. 

Our subject has no memory of his mother, 
as she died when he was a babe only three 
days old, nor has he many recollections of his 
father, lor he passed away when Phillip was 
but 10 years of age. There were seven chil- 
dren in the family, four of whom came to 
America, our subject being the youngest. The 
others were.: John, who died in Detroit; Will- 
iam, a resident of Lansing. Michigan; and 
*Mary, who lives in Detroit. 

From the age of ten years until he was 17, 
our subject lived in the home of his brother-in- 
law, John Stangier in the city of P)et7.dorf, 
where he had e.xcellent educational opportun- 
ities. Tw^o of his brothers emigrated to Amer- 
ica and as both of them had prospered the 
youth grew anxious to join them. In 1867 he 
reached Detroit, joined his brother John on his 
farm and while he worked on the farm also 



learned the trade of carpenter from this brother. 
This excellent trade Mr. Martens has followed 
more or less in the subsequent years, when 
other interests and public duties have permitted. 
After a winter spent with his brother William, 
at Lansing, he moved to Saginaw in 1870 and 
in the following spring came to Bay City. In 
1876 he located in Frankenlust tow-nship 
where he first bought 10 acres of stump land, 
for which he paid $7.50 per acre, and later 
added 15 acres more. He resided on this 
farm, wdiich he improved w^ith excellent build- 
ings, until the spring of 1904, when he sold it. 
At the present time he owns a one-acre corner 
lot in section 9, Frankenlust township. Here he 
erected a handsome home in 1904. 

Mr. Martens has always been one of the 
useful men of his township, a leader in its 
alTairs and a man of such substantial character 
that his fellow-citizens have found it not only 
to their best interests to consult his judgment, 
but to also elect him to responsible puljlic po- 
sitions. In politics he is a stanch Democrat. 
He w-as elected township clerk and served con- 
tinuously for eight years, from 1885 to 1893. 
In 1900 he was reelected to this ofifice and is 
still serving. While Frankenlust township was 
still a portion of Saginaw County, he was 
elected justice of the peace. He efficiently ad- 
ministered the duties of this office for a period 
of 10 years. 

In 1870 Mr. Martens was united in mar- 
riage with Barbara Daeschlein, who was born 
in Germany August 20, 1850, and is a daugh- 
ter of Michael and Mary (Schmidt) Daesch- 
lein, who came to Bay County when she was 
only two years old. .A family of 12 children 
have been born to this marriage, all of whom 
survive and are highly respected members of 
the sections in which they live, all of the sons, 
with one exception, adopting their father's 
trade. They are: William, of Frankenlust 



666 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



township: Lena (Mrs. Holiday), of Detroit; 
Margaret, wife of Charles Phippen, of De- 
troit ; J\Iary. a resident of Detroit ; Herman, of 
Frankenkist township ; George, a cheese-maker 
living in Detroit : Henry, of Bay City ; Emma, 
of Detroit; and Phillip A., Jr., Edward, John 
and Albert, who live at home with their parents. 
Mr. Martens is a consistent member of St. 
John's German Lutheran Church at Amelith 
and has been church treasurer for six years. 
He is a representative man of his section of the 
county and enjoys a full measure of public 
esteem as he commands the respect of all who 
know him, either in public or private life. 




LARENCE B. CHATFIELD, of the 
great milling and grain firm of Hine 
& Chatfield, of Bay City, has been 
identified very prominently with 
many of the important business enterprises of 
the Saginaw Valley for a number of years. ^Ir. 
Chatfield was born at Dryden. Tompkins 
County, New York. December 15, 1851, and is 
a son of David Asa and Elizabeth (Brown) 
Chatfield. 

Mr. Chatfield comes of Revolutionary 
stock, his great-grandfather having served in 
the patriot army. The great-grandfather re- 
sided in the vicinity of Albany, New York. He 
was a good citizen and a faithful adherent of 
the Presbyterian Church. 

David Asa Chatfield was born at Ballston 
Spa, Saratoga County, New York, in 1825, 
and when 10 years of age accompanied his pa- 
rents to Dryden, New York, and after becom- 
ing of age engaged in farming. He was a son 
of William Asa and Asenath (Warner) Chat- 
field. For 30 years he was an elder in the 
Presbyterian Church. He married Elizabeth 
Brown, a daughter of Conrad Brown, and they 



had fi\e children who reached maturity, viz : 
Clarence B., of Bay City; Estella, wife of 
Charles G. Fitts, of Dryden, New York ; Anna, 
deceased, who was the wife of William Haire, 
now of East Jordan, Michigan; Aaron W., of 
Bay City ; and William, of Dryden, New York. 
Mr. Chatfield died in 1894. The mother died 
at the age of 32 years, about 1863. 

Clarence B. Chatfield's boyhood and youth 
were spent on his father's farm and his educa- 
tion was secured in the district schools, in 
which he subsequently became a teacher for a 
few winters. After a course in Eastman's 
Business College at Poughkeepsie, New York, 
in 1875, Mr. Chatfield came to Bay City, Mich- 
igan, in the capacity of bookkeeper for John 
McGraw & Company, with which firm he re- 
mained two years and then entered into the 
same relation with Carter & Maltby. In 1879 
;Mr. Chatfield formed a partnership with Eli A. 
Spear in a retail grocery business, under the 
firm name of Spear & Chatfield, which was 
continued for three years, when Mr. Chatfield 
gave up his grocery interests and bought a one- 
half interest in a milling business. 

In 1877 the firm of Fray & Merrill estab- 
lished a grist-mill on North Water street. Bay 
City, between Seventh street and McKinley 
avenue, the present site of the Phoenix Flouring 
Mills. Shortly after, a new firm succeeded 
(Fay & Gates), which made improvements 
here, installing new machinery and enlarging 
the business. In 1882 Mr. Gates purchased 
Mr. Fay's interest and in April of that year 
:\Ir. Chatfield purchased *a one-half interest 
from Mr. Gates. The firm style now iiecame 
Gates & Chatfield, later C. B. Chatfield & 
Company, and in 1898 took its present name of 
Hine & Chatfield. The original name of the 
business was the Central Mills which was con- 
tinued until the structures were burned in No- 
vember. 1886. After the present improved 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



667 



plant was completed on tlie old site, the name 
was adopted of the Phoenix Flouring Mills. 
\\'ith greatly increased capacity, the output be- 
coming 250 instead of 125 barrels of flour per 
day. and with elevator storage increased from 
20.000 to 60.000 bushels, the business has con- 
tinued to steadily advance in volume until it 
now leads in its line in the Saginaw Valley. 
Its leading brand "Purity" is known to the 
trade all over the country, although the de- 
mand is so enormous in Michigan that almost 
all the output is sold at home. Use is made of 
Michigan wheat. 

In addition to merchant milling, this firm 
engages in another entirely distinct line, being 
jobbers of grain, manufacturers and jobters 
of feed and grain, jobbers of grain and field 
seeds and operators of a custom feed mill, doing 
an immense business in every line, leading both 
in milling and grain dealing, not only at Bay 
City but all through the valley. To hold this 
position in the face of competition indicates 
that the business is managed with great 
capacity. 

One of Mr. Chatfield's leading interests, 
aside from the enterprises mentioned, is his fine 
farm of 150 acres, situated in Portsmouth 
township. It has long since been cleared of 
forest growth, stumps and stones and is prob- 
ably as valuable as any land in the rich south- 
eastern section of Bay County. He has stocked 
it with Shorthorn and Durham cattle and Berk- 
shire swine, and owns many valuable animals. 
This farm it is his pleasure to operate as a 
dairy farm and he keeps some 40 head of the 
finest milch cows. 

Although Air. Chatfield has had such large 
personal interests to look after for .so many 
years, his fellow-citizens have alwavs found 
him ready to give time and financial assistance 
to encourage public enterprises tending to pro- 
mote the welfare of the people. He was one 



of the organizers and active promoters of the 
Michigan Sugar Companj', which was the in- 
itial company in the State, and was one of the 
directors. To Hon. Nathan B. Bradley and 
himself must be given the credit for the intro- 
duction of the industry, which through their 
urgent efforts has become an important and 
profitable one in this section. Mr. Chatfield 
was one of the organizers of the Alutual Build- 
ing & Loan Association of Bay County and 
served for 10 years as president of this body. 
He was also one of the organizers and directors 
of the Commercial National Bank and served 
as president of this institution for one year. 
Air. Chatfield has never been an aspirant for 
political honors, although he has been offered 
many public offices. His feeling of civic duty 
caused him to accept one term as a member of 
the City Council. 

Mr. Chatfield has one of the most tasteful 
homes in Bay City. He has a charming family 
of wife and four children. He married Char- 
lotte P. Russell, who is a daughter of Rev. 
William P. Russell, who was pastor of the Con- 
gregational Church at Memphis, Michigan, for 
30 years. The four children are : Blanche Eliza- 
beth : William Russell, of Bay City; Ray Prall, 
a student at Alma College: and Frederic 
Stevens. 

The family belong to the First Presbyterian 
Church, of Bay City. Mr. Chatfield has been 
an elder for the past 20 years and a trustee for 
the same length of time. He has always been 
interested in the work of the Sunday-school 
and has served as superintendent at various 
times. Fraternally he is a Mason and is at 
present worshipful master of Joppa Lodge. No. 
315, F. & A. M., and is also a member of Bay 
City Chapter. No. 136. R. A. M.. both of Bay 
City. 

In Clarence B. Chatfield, Bav City has a 
representative citizen, in the sense that he 



668 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



comes from an old and honorable American 
family, the roots of which are entwined around 
the firm foundations upon which this great 
country has risen to its place among the nations 
of the world, and because of the material suc- 
cess he has obtained through the legitimate 
conduct of great business enterprises. Person- 
ally, Mr. Chatfield impresses a visitor favor- 
ably. While quiet determination is marked in 
manner and speech, he possesses the courtesy 
and consideration of gentle breeding and easily 
converts a business acquaintance into a per- 
sonal friend. 



ENRY VAN POPPELEN. one of the 
highly respected citizens and substan- 
tial men of Hampton township, re- 
sides on his well-cultivated farm of 
nine acres, situated in section 19, which he de- 
votes to gardening and fruit-growing. Mr. 
Van Poppelen was torn December 27, 1854. in 
the village of Niftrick, Province of Gelderland, 
the Netherlands, and is a son of Anthony and 
Anna Mary (De Haan) Van Poppelen. 

The father of our subject was born April 
26, 1 82 1, in the province of North Brabant, 
the Netherlands, and died at Essexville, Bay 
County, Michigan, October 10, 1891. He was 
a gardener all his life and through his industry 
accumulated an ample fortune. Politically he 
was a Democrat. He belonged to the Catholic 
Church. He married Anna Mary De Haan, 
who was torn June 26, 1826, in the Nether- 
lands, and who still survives, residing with her 
youngest son at Bay City. They had seven 
children: Theodore, who died aged 41 years; 
Henry, of this sketch; Alphonse. a resident of 
Hampton township; Mrs. Helena Finn, of 
Hampton township; Frank, of Superior: Al- 
bert, of Hampton township; and John, of Bay 
City. 



Our subject was educated in Holland and 
came to America with his parents in 1872. 
They located at Bay City and he has continued 
to live in Bay County ever since. His work 
has been in sawmills and on farms. During 
seven years when he was engaged in sawmill 
work, he continued to live with his parents and 
then bought a tract of 20 acres of favorably 
situated land and inherited 10 acres from his 
father, which he devoted to market gardening. 
This, in addition to the growing of choice fruit, 
he has found very profitable and after his years 
of industry he finds himself ready to retire 
from hard work. He traded the 30 acres for 
his present place of nine acres receiving quite a 
sum in addition. He has a very comfortable 
home and excellent buildings. 

On June 21, 1887, Mr. Van Poppelen was 
married to Huberdina Janssen, who was born 
May 13, 1859, at Alphen, the Netherlands. She 
came to America in the spring of 1873 with her 
parents, Anthony and Antoinette (Van Lent) 
Janssen. i\Ir. and Mrs. Van Poppelen made a 
very enjoyable visit to Holland in the fall of 
igoi, returning to their American home on 
February 24, 1902. In religious belief they are 
Catholics. Politically, Mr. Van Poppelen is a 
Democrat. He served two years as drainage 
commissioner and has been connected with the 
local School Board for many years, at present 
serving as treasurer of School District, No. i, 
Hampton township. 




OHN WALKER HAUXHURST, 
M. D., physician and surgeon, of Bay 
City, West Side, was born at Jericho, 
Long Island, in Queens County, New 
York, April 30, 1848, and is a son of Jacob V. 
and Mary (Hicks) Hauxhurst. 

The parents of Dr. Hauxhurst were born 
in Oueens County, and there the father fol- 




GEORGE W. AMES 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



671 



lowed tlie business of builder and contractor 
for many years, but subsequently settled on a 
farm in Wisconsin. He was Ijorn in 1817 and 
resided on Long Island until 1856, when he re- 
moved to Richland County, Wisconsin, where 
he followed building and contracting until 
1862, when he retired to his farm in Eau 
Claire County where he clietl in 1884. He was 
a most worthy man in e\ery respect. In re- 
ligious belief he was a Quaker. Of his 12 chil- 
dren, 10 reached maturity and became scat- 
tered through various States where each estab- 
lished a home of his own. These were : James, 
of Los Angeles, California ; Sidney, deceased, 
who was a wholesale grocer in Milwaukee, 
Wisconsin ; Eliza, who married James Young 
of Eau Claire, Wisconsin; Ann A., who mar- 
ried Robert Swift of Eau Claire, Wisconsin; 
John W., of West Bay City; Jacob, of Salt 
Lake City, Utah ; Cynthia, who married George 
De Long, of Minneapolis, Minnesota ; William, 
of Tombstone, Arizona ; Elisha, of Salt Lake 
City, Utah ; and Mary, wife of Charles Ingram, 
of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. 

The early youth of Dr. Hau.xhurst was that 
of the average farm boy, — attendance at the 
local schools and the vigorous out-door labor 
which were strenuous in the extreme. In 1870 
he left home and went to Boonville, Missouri 
where he taught school for two years. His 
spare moments during this time were spent in 
reading medicine, and in this way he prepared 
himself for entrance into the medical depart- 
ment of the University of Michigan, where he 
jvas graduated in 1876. He then came to 
Wenona, now Bay City, West Side, and has 
continued in the successful practice of his pro- 
fession here ever since. He is well known all 
through this section and is a valued member of 
the county and State medical societies and of 
the American Medical Association. 

Dr. Hauxhurst has a delightful home and 

36 



pleasant family circle. He was married to 
Mary Fox, who is a daughter of James Fox, of 
Angelica, New York. They ha\e one son and 
one daughter, \iz : Henry Austin, a graduate 
of Princeton University in the class of 1902 
and of Harvard Law School, class of 1905 ; and 
Florence Clarke, who is a member of the West 
Bay City High School, class of 1905. The 
family attend the Presbyterian Church. Dr. 
Hauxhurst belongs to the Royal Arcanum and 
also to Bay Tent No. 194, Knights of the Mod- 
ern Maccabees. 




EORGE W. AMES, whose portrait 
accompanies this sketch, is an active 
and energetic real estate and insur- 
ance agent of Bay City, Michigan, 
with office located in the Phoenix Block. 

Mr. Ames was born October 31, 1852, at 
Albion, New York, and is a son of George C. 
and Sarah (Howell) Ames. His father is 
engaged in mercantile pursuits. The son re- 
ceived his mental training in the public schools 
of Erie, Pennsylvania, which he attended until 
he was 16 years old. At that age he went to 
work on the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad as 
a news agent. When he w-as a year older, he 
was employed as a brakeman <in the Erie & 
Pittsburg Railroad, having a run from Alle- 
gheny City to Sharpsville, Pennsylvania. In 
1870 he took up his residence in Detroit and 
l>ecame a brakeman on the Detroit, Lansing 
& Lake Michigan Railroad, now included in 
the Pere Marquette system. On October 4, 
1872, he was transferred to the Detroit & Bay 
City Railroad, which was under the same man- 
agement as the D., L. & L. M. He remained 
at work on this line until May 14. 1888, latterly 
in the employ of the Michigan Central Rail- 
road Company, which had obtained control of 



6/2 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



the road. During this period Mr. Ames served 
as a passenger conductor for 12 years, of which 
the last six years were spent on a run between 
Bay City and Mackinaw. 

The first lousiness experience of Mr. Ames 
dates from 1884. In that year he began to buy 
and sell property through agents in Chicago, 
Detroit and Bay City, and in this line he pros- 
pered. Within three weeks of the time when 
be severed his connection with the Michigan 
Central Railroad Company, he opened offices 
in Bay City, where he has conducted a success- 
ful business ever since. He has handsome 
quarters on the lower floor of the Phoenix 
Block, where he has an extensive real estate and 
insurance patronage, his business being liber- 
ally advertised. His patrons include many of 
the leading banking institutions and railroad 
companies in different States, as well as promi- 
nent attorneys and other citizens. 

Mr. Ames is a member of Joppa Lodge, 
No. 315, F. & A. M. ; Blanchard Chapter, No. 
59, R. A. M. ; and Bay City Commandery, No. 
26, K. T. He is also a member of the Bay 
City Club and the Board of Trade. 




lONAS JOHNSON. Among the most 
enterprising citizens of South Bay 
City, is the subject of this sketch, who 
was born in Sweden, March 29, 1836. 
Mr. Johnson is a son of John and Katherine 
Johnson, of whom the latter died when her son, 
Jonas, was four and a half years old. He has 
one brother, August, living in the old country, 
who is a widower, with three children. 

The subject of this sketch emigrated from 
Sweden to the United States, May 15, 1870. 
He first went to Chicago and from there came 
to Bay City. He gained the competency which 
he now possesses by toiling as a laborer, apply- 



ing himself to whatever work he could find to 
do, in order to make an honest dollar. He was 
one of the first to be employed on the water- 
works. He continued striving in various labor- 
ious occupations until about 1889. when he had 
accumulated an amount sufficient for the con- 
struction of several dwelling houses on South 
Lincoln avenue. 

On the arrival of Mr. Johnson in this vi- 
cinity, the ground occupied by the street on 
which he now resides was a swamp and cattle 
were often herded through it. In the 300 
block on South Lincoln avenue he now owns a 
row of five houses and has spent considerable 
money on sewerage and cement walks. He ex- 
pects to lay more cement walks in 1905. 

There were but few dwellings on 12th 
street, now called Columbus avenue, when the 
subject of this sketch first settled here, and he 
and his good wife lived in a shanty. They still 
occupy a humble cottage in plain and simple 
style. 

iNIr. Johnson has contributed freely to all 
movements which tended toward the improve- 
ment of the city, giving liberally to church and 
school. 

He is a strong believer in improvements 
and warmly favors the location of manufac- 
turing enterprises in South Bay City. He voted 
for the street railway francliise, and helped to 
grade Lincoln avenue. In 1900 he put in new 
sewerage for all his tenants. He derives a good 
income from his houses, which furnish him a 
comfortable living with a surplus to lay by. 

In 1857. in Sweden, the subject of this 
sketch married Johanna Johnson, who did not 
have to change her name. Their first meeting 
was at a place where he was working. There 
he also obtained employment, and their court- 
ship began, which resulted in marriage. She 
well remembers how wild things looked when 
they first settled in Bay City. She has stuck 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



673 



to her husband througli thick and thin. To- 
getlier tliey accumulated what they have, and 
now a happy, old couple, they together enjoy 
the fruits of their labor. 

In politics. Mr. Johnson is a Republican, 
believing that the administration of that party 
has tended to promote his prosperity. 




OBERT NIVEN, whose comfortable 
and attractive home is situated in sec- 
tion 27, Hampton township, on a por- 
tion of his fine farm of 120 acres, 
which extends through sections 33 and 34, was 
born in the famous old city of Glasgow, Scot- 
land, ^lay 3, 1834. He is a son of Mars and 
Susan (Don) Niven. 

Although our subject was a man grown 
when his feet first touched the soil of the United 
States, the blood of his great-grandfather, 
Capt. Robert Niven. had been shed here dur- 
ing the Revolutionary War, while he was lead- 
ing his British command at Crown Point, New 
York. Capt. Robert Niven left two sons, John 
and Robert, the latter of whom was not born 
until after the tragic death of the father. 

Robert Niven, our subject's grandfather, 
born under such cirsumstances, was educated 
by the British government and was technically 
instructed in the art of weaving. He died in 
Scotland, leaving these children : Robert, An- 
drew. Daniel, John, David, William, Mars, 
James and two daughters. Three of the sons 
served with gallantry in the British Army and 
two in the British Navy. One of those in the 
army was badly wounded in the Napoleonic 
wars. 

Mars Niven. father of our subject, was 
given a rather unusual Christian name, under 
these circumstances. His oldest brother was at 
the time of the child's christening signal officer 



on the British man-of-war "Mars" and was the 
first man to sight the French fleet off Trafal- 
gar. In celebration of that triumph, the infant 
brother was named Mars. However, he never 
took to military life. As a means of support 
he learned the trade of weaver. In 1841 he 
came to the United States and worked at cot- 
ton spinning for two years at Providence, 
Rhode Island, and then removed to Canada, 
where the remainder of his active life was 
spent in farming. His last three years were 
spent with our subject and brother and he died 
in Michigan, aged 75 years. 

Mars Niven married Susan Don, who was 
born at Glasgow, Scotland, and died in Can- 
ada, aged 70 years. Robert Niven, our sub- 
ject, was the first born of the family of six 
children, the others being as follows: ]\Iar- 
garet, a resident of Montreal; Susan (Mrs. 
Porter) , of Hampton township ; Janet Cath- 
erine, of Lindsay, Ontario, Canada ; a daughter 
Agnes, who died in Glasgow, Scotland, aged 
four years: and John, who was killed at Sag- 
inaw by the railroad. Mars Niven and the dis- 
tinguished African explorer. Dr. Livingstone, 
were schoolmates and later neighbors. 

Our subject was 10 years of age when his 
parents settled in the village of Lanark, Canada. 
Until he was 21 years old he was submissive to 
his father, giving all his earnings to the latter, 
although from the age of 13 years he worked 
on farms and later at the carpenter's trade all 
over the neighborhood. He moved to Huron 
District, Ontario, when he was about 18 years 
old, and then worked as a carpenter until he 
was about 32 years of age. .After he had satis- 
factorily built his first barn, he started out for 
himself as a builder and, as such, he came to 
Bay City in 1866. Here he helped to build 
many of the great mills of this section, working 
as a millwright for eight years. He assisted in 
the building and operating of the old Hargrave 



674 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



mill and had charge of its machinery for seven 
years. 

Finally ]\Ir. Niven decided to purchase a 
farm and settle down to an agricultural life. 
Land was plentiful, prices were within his means 
and during a very dry spell of weather, he was 
induced hy unscrupulous agents, to buy his 
farm, — 120 acres of unbroken, low lying prairie 
land, with no settlers in sight, no roads and no 
improvements. Mr. Niven was obliged to 
suffer for some years on account of the season 
of the year in which he had visited his prop- 
erty, for he found when the rains came that he 
had land which could ne\er be made produc- 
tive without extensive ditching and a great sys- 
tem of drainage. During the first six years he 
made a living by ditching through this neigh- 
borhood as his crops were all drowned out, but 
all the time he was getting his land, the soil of 
which was rich and wonderfully fertile, in good 
shape, and now he is well repaid for it is one of 
the best farms of the township. He has made 
all the improvements, erecting a dwelling and 
two barns on section 34 and on the home place 
has a comfortable dwelling, two barns, a gran- 
ary and a workshop, including a tool shed and 
all necessary out-buildings. These he has con- 
structed himself and all are substantial build- 
ings. Mr. Niven has set out two fine orchards. 
He has 10 milch cows and sells his cream 
wholesale. He carries on general farming, 
raising grain, hay and sugar beets and many 
fine cattle yearly and is probably one of the 
most successful farmers of his section. 

Mr. Niven was married on June i, 1867. to 
Mary Tacie, who was born in Huron District, 
Ontario, Canada, March 17, 1848, and is a 
daughter of Prosper and Harriet Tacie, of 
Quebec, Canada, of French extraction. They 
have had 14 children and have been very for- 
tunate in rearing 12 of them, viz: Mrs. Susan 
Bort, of Bay City; Mrs. Janet Bort, of North 



Dakota ; Mrs. Mary Grischke, of Merritt town- 
ship; Mrs. Margaret Smith, of Chicago; Mrs. 
Harriet Quinn, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; 
Robert H., living at home; Mrs. Elizabeth 
Pittsford, of Chicago; Mrs. Julia Agnes Zim- 
merman, of Merritt township ; Mrs. Bernice 
Vernon, of Chicago ; and John, Arthur and 
Edward, who are living at home. Two little 
girls died, — Margaret, aged one year and 
Laura, aged nine months. 

Mr. Niven was long identified with the 
Democratic party, but when it departed from 
its old standards, he could no longer support its 
principles and has since been affiliated with the 
Republicans. He has always been a leading 
man in his township, one whose responsible 
character has made his advice regarded with 
consideration on all public matters. For 18 
years he has been connected w'ith school offices 
and it was mainly through his efforts that the 
creditable school building was erected in School 
District, No. 6, Hampton township. For two 
years he was school inspector. 




-,-,AUL RICHARDS, an industrious, 
yM thrifty and worthy farmer of Bay 
County, is located in section 19, Kaw- 
kawlin township. He was born in 
Germany in 1835 and there received his school- 
ing. He came to Bay County and bought his 
farm of 40 acres in 1886, and has since then 
been successfully engaged in general farming. 
In 1902 he built his present residence. 

The subject of this sketch was married in 
Germany, in 1869, to Augusta Spawlock, a 
daughter of John Spawlock, a shoemaker, who 
died when Augusta was nine 3'ears of age. 
They have had 12 children, eight of whom were 
born in Germany. Those who came to this 
country were : Conrad, Jennie, Alvina and 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



6/-; 



Clara. Four died in Germany. Conrad is liv- 
ing at Port Huron, Michigan. Jennie was mar- 
ried to William Deplounty, a farmer of Kaw- 
kawlin township. They have si.x children, as 
follows : Julia, l*"rancis, W'illiam, James, Jennie 
and Sarah. Alvina was married to Thomas 
Cavanaugh, who lives in West Bay City, and is 
a conductor on the Michigan Central Railroad. 
They have reared five children, namely : Lizzie, 
Thomas, Irene. Clara and Harold. Clara was 
married to Peter Monltane, a stationary en- 
gineer, who lives in Bay City. They have two 
children : Harvey and Theresa. 

Four children have been born to Mr. and 
Mrs. Richards since they came to this country, 
namely: Frances, who lives at home; Lizzie, 
who married Edward Moultane, and has one 
child. Lewis; Paul J., who is living with his 
parents on the home farm ; and Kate, deceased. 

In politics ]\Ir. Richards acts with the 
Democratic party, and in religious faith he is a 
Catholic. 




HARLES T. NEWKIRK, ^I. A.. 
M. D., a well-known physician and 
surgeon of Bay City, and a specialist 
of wide experience in yellow fever, 
was born near Simcoe, Norfolk District, On- 
taria, December lo, 1844, and is a son of Moses 
and Catherine (Topping) Newkirk. 

The Newkirk family is of Dutch extrac- 
tion, its founders having settled in Eastern 
New York many years ago. Peter Newirk. the 
paternal grandfather, was torn in the Catskills, 
but subsequently moved to Canada. 

Moses Newkirk, our subject's father, was 
born in Norfolk District, Ontario, where his 
whole life was passed. He was a local min- 
ister and also a farmer and was known far and 
wide, not only for his eloquent expounding of 
the Gcspel, but also for his charitable and phil- 



anthropic work. It is related that his gifts of 
speech were so unusual that no edifice could 
ever be found, in that section, large enough to 
hold his auditors, whether his subject was re- 
ligion or politics. He lived a long and blame- 
less life and died at the age of 78 years. 

The mother of Dr. Newkirk was a daugh- 
ter of John Topping, also of Norfolk District, 
Ontario. She became the mother of a large 
family, many of whom occupy prominent posi- 
tions in life. 

Dr. Newkirk was educated at Victoria Uni- 
\-ersity, where he secured both his degrees. 
After his final graduation, he practiced his pro- 
fession for four months in Canada and then 
started on a visit to South America. At Buenos 
Ayres he secured the position he desired with 
the Argentine Army, one which enabled him to 
make a special study of tropical diseases. Four 
months later he resigned and entered the Bra- 
zilian Army, and served there for four years, 
with the rank of major, taking part in the 
memorable war which waged between Brazil 
and Paraguay. In 1868 he settled down to 
practice at Buenos Ayres, but in 1872 he was 
homesick enough to return to his native land. It 
was an accident that caused his location at 
Bay City. He came here on a visit to his 
brother and was so impressed with the natural 
beautiful location and the evidences of com- 
mercial prosperity and educational advance- 
ment, that he decided to make it his future 
home. 

When in the late war with Spain the sol- 
diers of the American Army, youths born and 
bred in a vigorous Northern climate, were sud- 
denly hurried to Southern points, without any 
chance to get acclimated, it was feared that 
yellow fever and kindred troubles would claim 
more victims than Spanish bullets. Realizing 
this. Dr. Newkirk offered his services to Gen- 
eral .'\lger, then Secretary of War, who pre- 



676 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



sented them to the late President McKinley, 
who gladly availed himself of the knowledge 
and skill of one who had had such unusual ex- 
periences in tropical diseases. Dr. Newkirk 
fully realized what he was undertaking, but he 
heroically accepted the conditions and served 
through the whole period of the Spanish- 
American War as brigade surgeon, with the 
rank of major. His whole attention was de- 
voted to the yellow fever camps and his re- 
markable work is a matter of war history. He 
returned to Bay City with a consciousness of 
duty well performed, but with his own system 
almost wrecked. 

Dr. Newkirk has spent much time in for- 
eign travel and has visited all the important 
centers of Europe, increasing his medical 
knowledge and his social acquaintance with 
those of congenial aims. He was a member of 
the International Congress of Military Sur- 
geons who attended and carried on their delib- 
erations at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 
at St. Louis, in 1904. 

Dr. Newkirk was married to Mary J. An- 
derson, who is a daughter of John Anderson, 
of Dover, Ontario, but was born at Cleveland, 
Ohio. They had a family of six children, the 
two survivors being : Harry A., a graduate of 
the University of Michigan, class of 1896, who 
is now a practicing physician at Iron Mountain, 
Michigan ; and Dolores, now a resident of New 
York City. This cultured and accomplished 
lady was born in Corrientes, Argentine Re- 
public. She graduated first from the Leggett 
School, at Detroit and then entered Vassar 
College, at Poughkeepsie, New York. She 
has traveled extensively in Europe and speaks 
the languages of France and Spain like a 
native. 

Dr. Newkirk is a Republican in politics but 
is in no sense a politician. He is a member of 
a number of medical societies, including the 



Bay County Medical Society, the Michigan 
State Medical Society and the American Medi- 
cal Association. He is surgeon of the Third 
Infantry, Michigan National Guard ; is a mem- 
ber of the Spanish War Veterans and the Na- 
tional League of Veterans and Sons. He is 
also United States pension examiner at Bay 
City. He was made a Mason at Asuncion, 
Paraguay. 




OACHIM SIGELKO, one of the suc- 
cessful farmers and much respected 
citizens of Merritt township, who 
owns 40 acres of well-improved land 
in section 10, has made his own way in the 
world and through his own industry has be- 
come a man of independent means. Mr. Sig- 
elko was born in Magdeburg, Germany, May 
2", 1858, and is a son of Christopher Sigelko. 
Mr. Sigelko's mother died when he was 
four years of age, leaving two other children : 
Frederick, of Germany ; and John, of Tuscola 
County, Michigan. The father also died in 
Germany and our subject came alone to Amer- 
ica and in 1880 reached Tuscola County, ]\Iich- 
igan. For about three years he worked at rail- 
road construction and on farms by the month, 
and then came to Bay City and began to work 
in sawmills and lumber-yards. After about 10 
3'ears of this labor, Mr. Sigelko bought his 
farm of 40 acres in Merritt township, which at 
that time was all covered with a heavy growth 
of timber. For a time he lived in a little log 
house he found on the place, but since clear- 
ing his land and getting it under cultivation he 
has erected a very comfortable home and a 
substantial barn. He has made many other im- 
provements and now has a valuable property in 
which he takes much pleasure. 

On June 11, 1886, Mr. Sigelko was mar- 
ried to Louisa Man, who was born in Germany, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



677 



November 3, 1863, and came to Bay County in 
1 87 1 with her parents, August and Alary Mau. 
Mr. and Mrs. Sigelko have six children : Annie, 
Henry, Elsie, Emma, Bernhardt and Minnie. 
Tlie older ones attend school. In politics Mr. 
Sigelko is a Democrat. He is a member of the 
German Lutheran Church at Merritt. He 
bears the reputation of an honest, upright, in- 
dustrious man, a good husband and father and 
a liberal supporter of the church. 




ENRY C. THOMPSON, city engineer 
of West Bay City, Michigan, was 
born in Middlefield, Geauga County, 
Ohio, April 4, 1855, and is a son of 
Augustus and Rovilla (Johnson) Thompson. 

William Thompson, the paternal grand- 
father of our subject, was born in Pennsylvania 
but before the birth of his son Augustus he had 
settled in Ohio. He was a soldier in the War 
of 1812. Later he became a substantial farmer. 
.'Xugustus Thompson was born March 12, 1825, 
in Middlefield, Ohio, and grew to manhood on 
the home farm in Geauga County. He married 
when about 26 years of age and in 1856 moved 
to Ashtabula County, where he was engaged in 
farming when the Civil War broke out. He 
was one of the first loyal patriots to respond to 
the call to arms and served through a three- 
months enlistment in Company D, 19th Reg., 
Ohio Vol. Inf. and then reenlisted in Company 
A, 29th Reg., Ohio Vol. Inf., for three years 
but was honorably discharged in July, 1862, on 
account of disability. In the fall of that year 
he removed with his family to Bay City. Here 
he engaged in teaming, jobbing and farming 
for 14 years. In 1876 he went to Little Rock, 
Arkansas, where he spent two years on a farm 
and five years in a planing mill. Mr. Thomp- 
son then went to Texarkana, Texas, where he 



engaged in hotel-keeping for a year, after 
which he returned to Ohio and settled on a farm 
in the vicinity of Yellow Springs. There he 
followed farming for the next 20 years, but in 
1904 he retired from active labor and is now a 
venerated member of his son's household at 
West Bay City. In spite of a life of unusual 
activity, Mr. Thompson is hale and hearty and 
bears his 80 years very easily. 

Augustus Thompson was married first to 
Rovilla Johnson, who was a daughter of Eras- 
tus Johnson, a native of New York State, and 
they had two children : Henry C. and Frank C, 
the former of West Bay City and the latter of 
Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. The mother of 
these sons died in 1890, aged 54 years. She 
was a good. Christian woman. Mr. Thompson 
was married second to Matilda Hamma, who 
died in 1904. Mr. Thompson is a member of 
the Masonic lodge at Yellow Springs. 

Henry C. Thompson came to Michigan in 
the fall of 1862 with his parents, and accom- 
panied them to West Bay City in 1864. He 
attended the public schools but the bent of his 
mind was so much in the direction of civil en- 
gineering that by the time he had completed 
the common-school course he had learned the 
practical details of his chosen profession under 
the instruction of J. M. Johnston, who was 
then city engineer at Bay City. The youth 
decided to become an engineer and in 1872 he 
went into Mr. Johnston's office and worked 
under him and under his successor, Capt. 
George Turner, until 1895. ^or a period of 
10 years of this time he served as county drain 
commissioner. In 1895 he went to Sault Ste. 
Marie, Michigan, where he was engaged as 
civil engineer for the Board of Road Commis- 
sioners of Chippewa County, and remained 
there during 1895, 1896, 1897 and 1898. Dur- 
ing the last three years he was also engaged as 
engineer and as superintendent of the water- 



678 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



works at Sault Ste. Marie. Mr. Thompson 
spent one year at Lansing, Michigan, as city 
engineer and then returned to the Sauk where 
he was assistant engineer on the Water Power 
Canal until 1891, when he became city engineer 
of West Bay City, a position he has filled ever 
since. 

Mr. Thompson married Kate M. Whitmore, 
who is a daughter of George R. and Frances 
(Nims) Whitmore, of Champaig'n, Illinois. 
Mrs. Thompson was born in Vermont. Her 
father, the late George R. Whitmore, was a 
son of Perley Whitmore and was born in Win- 
field, Vermont, in 1835 and died March 8, 
1897. He was a school teacher the greater part 
of his life, and came to Wenona, now West 
Bay City, in 1873, from Marine City, Michi- 
gan, where he had taught school for many 
years. In 1880 he left West Bay City and re- 
moved to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where he 
engaged in the fire insurance business until his 
death. He married Frances Nims, who was 
born December 5, 1832, and is a daughter of 
Warren Nims. a native of New York. They 
had two children : Mrs. Thompson and Perley 
Nims. i\Irs. Whitmore makes her home with 
Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. 

Politically the family voters have been 
identified with the Whig and Republican par- 
ties. Mr. Thompson has served in several po- 
litical offices, having been deputy treasurer of 
Bay County for several terms and in 1882 and 
1883 was city recorder of West Bay City. He 
is a member, like the other masculine members 
of the family, of the Masonic fraternity, and 
belongs to Wenona Lodge, No. 296, F. & A. M. 
of which he is past master ; of Blanchard Chap- 
ter, No. 59, R.A. M., and all the Scottish Rite 
bodies up to the i8th degree in Bay City. He 
is a 32d degree Mason, having taken the de- 
grees from the i8th to the 32d in Michigan 



Sovereign Consistory, S. P. R. S.. at Detroit. 
He belongs also to Bay Tent, No. 194, Knights 
of the Modern Maccabees. 

Mr. and Mrs. Thompson have three chil- 
dren: Ray W'., Jessie S. and Leone. The fam- 
ilv attend the Presbvterian Church. 




RANK SERMEYER, who owns a 
valuable truck and fruit farm situ- 
ated near Bay City, consisting of 30 
acres in section 19, Hampton town- 
ship, was born June 18, 1858, at Bay City, and 
is a son of Joseph and Theresa (Sattler) 
Sermeyer. 

The parents of Mr. Sermeyer were born in 
Bavaria, Germany, the father in 1809 and the 
mother, in 181 6. The former died at Bay City 
at the age of 62 years, and the mother died on 
March 12, 1895, aged y^ years. Joseph Ser- 
meyer came to America in 1852, a stone-mason 
and carpenter, trades he followed for a time 
and then engaged in farming. He was one of 
the first Republicans in his locality. In re- 
ligious faith he was a Catholic. The children 
of Joseph Sermeyer and wife were: Jacob, who 
died in Germany; John N., of Bay City; J. B., 
of West Branch, Michigan; Joseph, who has 
been lost sight of; and Martin (deceased) and 
our subject, who were both born in America. 

Frank Sermeyer has lived in Bay County 
all his life and was 10 years of age when the 
family removed to Hampton township. His 
little farm is one of great fertility and is in a 
high state of cultivation. He raises garden 
produce and fruit and makes a specialty of the 
tuber known as the "six weeks potato." 

On Julv 10. 1883. Mr. Sermeyer was united 
in marriage with Margaret Lynch, who was 
born at Bay City, October 24, 1865, and is a 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



679 



daughter of Thomas and Hannah (Reardon) 
Lynch, both of whom were born in Ireland. 
Mr. and Mrs. Sermeyer have no children. 

Ever since attaining his majority, Mr. Ser- 
meyer has been identified with the Republican 
party, and on numerous occasions he has served 
in township offices. He is the present treas- 
urer of Hampton township, has been constable 
and path-master, and in November, 1894, was 
a member of the Bay County grand jury. He 
bears the reputation of being one of the honor- 
able and upright men of his section. He has 
owned his fine farm for the past 10 years, hav- 
ing acquired it through his own efforts. Both 
he and his wife are consistent members of the 
Catholic Church. 




RANK ELLIOTT TYLER, an enter- 
prising business man of Bay City, 
president of the Bay City Omnibus 
Company, president of the Wood's 
Opera House Company, one of the man?gcrs of 
the Crapo Building Company and one of the 
managers of the Shearer Brothers Building, 
was born April 4, 1852, at Flushing, Michigan, 
and is the only surviving son of the late Dr. 
Columbus V. and Marie (Herrick) Tyler. 

Mr. Tyler was 19 years old when he accom- 
panied his parents to Bay City, where he worked 
as Ixjokkeeper for the old dry goods house of 
Munger & Company for two years and then en- 
tered the Bay City Bank. In this institution 
he filled every position from bookkeeper to as- 
sistant cashier and is still associated with it as 
a member of its directing board. 

r^Ir. Tyler then embarked in an extensive 
livery business, building for its accommoda- 
tion the fine brick stable on Saginaw street, 
which is now occupied by the Bay City Omni- 
bus Company. He was one of the organizers 



of this company and has ever since been its 
president. He has many other large business 
interests here, all of which are pushed with the 
vigor and success of an able business man. Al- 
though he has always shown commendable in- 
terest in the development of Bay City, he has 
never taken as active a part in city politics as 
have many of his contemporaries, usually cast- 
ing his influence in the direction of tried, true 
men, oblivious of party ties. In 1890 he was 
elected alderman but an attack of typhoid fever 
prevented him taking as prominent a stand on 
the leading questions of that time as he desired. 
L'ntil 1896 he was a Democrat, by sympathy 
and rearing, but since then has been identified 
with the Republican party, voting first for the 
late President McKinley. He is a member of 
the Board of Police Commissioners and one of 
the directors of the Elm Lawn Cemetery Com- 
pany. 

In 1875 ^I''- Tyler married Ella Fay, who 
is a daughter of Hon. William L. Fay, who 
was one of the first mayors of Bay City. His 
son. La Fountain, is a student in the Detroit 
University and will graduate in the class of 
1905 in mechanical engineering. The family 
belong to Trinity Episcopal Church, in which 
Mr. Tyler has been a vestryman for a number 
of years. Fraternally he is a member of Joppa 
Lodge, No. 315, F. & A. M., Bay City Chapter, 
No. 136 R. A. M., and the Scottish Rite bod- 
ies in Bay City to the i8th degree, and Scot- 
tish Rite bodies at Detroit from the i8th to the 
32d. He is a member of Michigan Sovereign 
Consistory, S. P. R. S., and Moslem Temple, 
A. A. O. N. M. S., both of Detroit. Mr. Tyler 
assisted in the organization of the first lodge of 
Elks in Bay Cit3\ although he is not now con- 
nected with that body. Socially he belongs to 
the Bay City Club. 

Mr. T\ler stands deservedly high in the 
estimation of his fellow citizens. To the 



6So 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



stranger he appears, in addition to being a cap- 
able, polished man of affairs, a sincere, cour- 
teous, refined gentleman. 




ICHARD GILLESPIE, principal of 
the Bay City Business College, is one 
of the well-equipped educators of 
Bay County. He was born near 
Cobourg, Canada, September 24, 1869, and is a 
son of Edward and Martha (Davies) Gillespie. 
The parents of Mr. Gillespie have passed 
their lives in the Dominion of Canada and now 
reside in the vicinity of Hamilton, Ontario, 
where they located about 1870. The father 
was born near Cobourg, December 7, 1824, and 
although he has passed his 80th milestone he is 
still active, both in mind and body. He has 
always led an agricultural life. He married 
Martha Davies and they had seven children, 
viz: William, of Battle Creek, Michigan; 
Elizabeth, wife of Wesley Packham, of Hamil- 
ton, Ontario; Sarah Jane, wife of George T. 
Packham, living near Hamilton, Ontario; 
Charles, of Perry Sound. Ontario; Mary, wife 
of D. D. Springsted, living near Hamilton; 
Margery, wife of Robert Lewis, of Hamilton, 
Ontario; and Richard, of this sketch. 

Richard Gillespie comes of sturdy old 
Scotch ancestry, his paternal grandfather hav- 
ing left his native land on account of religious 
persecution. He settled at Belfast, Ireland, 
and some years later was an early settler in the 
Province of Ontario. Our subject was edu- 
cated in the public schools at Hamilton, the 
Hamilton Collegiate Institute, the Albert Col- 
lege at Belleville, Ontario, and later secured a 
I St grade teacher's certificate from the Hamil- 
ton Institute. He then engaged in teaching in 
the suburbs of Hamilton for some four years, 
filling important and responsible positions. In 



1897 he turned his attention especially to com- 
mercial work and subsequently came to Bay 
City to become principal of the business depart- 
ment of the college here, and in 1903 was ap- 
pointed principal of the college. Notable 
changes have been made since his connection 
with the school, resulting in increased attend- 
ance and extended facilities. The graduates 
have no trouble in securing good positions, 
the thorough preparation given them here 
making them familiar with every form of a bus- 
iness education. Special attention is given to 
penmanship, Professor Gillespie giving this his 
personal direction. He secured his training at 
the Zanerian Art College at Columbus, Ohio. 

Mr. Gillespie was married to Edith Will- 
iams, who is a daughter of Henry Williams, of 
Hamilton, Ontario, and they have three chil- 
dren : Margery, Cora and Florence. The fam- 
ily are adherents of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. Our subject is a member of Joppa 
Lodge, No. 315, F. & A. M. He has made a 
name for himself in Bay County as an educator 
and has won many personal friends on account 
of his courteous manner and sterling character. 




OHN M. ARNOLD, one of the leading 
men of Monitor township, who owns a 
fine, well-improved farm of 70 acres 
in section 30, Monitor township, and 
30 acres in section 19, Bangor township, was 
born June 27, 1868, at Salzburg, Bay County, 
Michigan, and is a son of John G. and Anna 
B. (Zill) Arnold. 

John G. Arnold was born in Bavaria, Ger- 
many, and came to America in 1853. on a sail- 
ing: vessel which was tossed on the ocean for 
nine weeks. Two years prior to this his two 
sisters had come to Bay County and were mar- 
ried and settled in Frankenlust township. Mr. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



68 1 



Arnold joined them and was a resident of the 
county from that time until his death, which 
occurred July 30, 1900. At first the young 
man sought any kind of work that he could do, 
providently saved his money and in 1854 
bought 20 acres of wild land in Salzburg, 
which he placed under a fine state of cultiva- 
tion and then added 40 acres more. Then, in 
partnership with two others, he bought 80 
acres in ^Monitor township; in 1868, 30 acres in 
Bangor township; and in 1888, another 30 
acres in Monitor township. All these lands he 
redeemed from the wilderness, draining, clear- 
ing and Cultivating them. He also owned 20 
acres on Center street. Bay City, of which prop- 
erty all was sold but five acres. Prior to his 
death, he gave 66 1-3 acres to his son George 
L., and 30 acres to our subject, the latter being 
a wedding present. Politically he was a stanch 
Democrat. He was one of the leading mem- 
bers of the German Lutheran Church, of which 
he was a trustee and for two years was treas- 
urer. His remains were laid to rest in Monitor 
township. His children were : Margaret (Mrs. 
A. G. Hufnagel) ; Barbara E., wife of George 
Feinauer; Michael, deceased; George L., a 
farmer of Monitor township; IMaria A., who 
married J. L. Hufnagel, and at her death left 
two children, — .\ndrew M. and Clara .A. ; 
Anna B., wife of George Leiberger; John M., 
of this sketch; and Kunigunda, deceased. 

Our subject was educated in the schools of 
Frankenlust township and enjoyed the advan- 
tages of one term at Salzburg. When he mar- 
ried, his father gave him 30 acres in Monitor 
township and he purchased 40 acres, and he 
has continued to carry on general farming ever 
since. He has a very valuable property and an 
exceedingly pleasant home. 

On May i, 1890, Mr. Arnold was married 
to Maria K. Kolb, who is a daughter of Thomas 
G. and Margaret (Gerhaenser) Kolb, and they 



have had seven children, all of whom survive, 
except the eldest, George L., namely : John G., 
Adam G., Edwin G., Emily A. B., Alfred G., 
and Edmund L., the eldest 13 years old and 
the youngest, a babe of two years. This is a 
bright, merry, happy family, who will be given 
every chance to develop into first-class Ameri- 
can citizens. 

Grandfather Kolb was born in Germany in 
1821, and his wife, in 1818. They came to 
America with their son, Thomas G. Kolb, in 
1852, and Mr. Kolb worked in the lumber mills 
until he had earned enough to buy 11 acres of 
wild land in Frankenlust township. This was 
his home for many years. He adopted the 
principles of the Democratic party and was 
very highly thought of, and served as road- 
master and as township treasurer. He was 
buried in West Bay City. Mrs. Arnold's father 
was six years old when the family came to 
Michigan. He assisted his father until the age 
of 24 years, and then married, and became the 
father of 11 children, viz: Maria R. (Mrs. 
Arnold) ; Margaret E., wife of Leonard Ger- 
linger; Caroline A., wife of John Scherzer; 
George, of Brooks, Bay County ; Barbara .\. 
(Mrs. Heaberlaiid ) ; Johanna, wife of John 
Huber; John H., of Monitor township; Anna 
B., deceased ; Fred J., of Monitor township ; 
Michael G., deceased; and Emma, of Monitor 
township. Mr. and Mrs. Kolb reside in sec- 
tion 30, Monitor township. 

Mr. Arnold has always taken part in poli- 
tics and is one of the stanch Democrats of the 
county. In 1892 he was elected township treas- 
urer and in 1893 ^^^ ^^^^^ reelected. The largest 
vote ever known in the township was polled and 
at the next election he had no opposition what- 
ever. This was a pretty fair evidence of the 
confidence and esteem of his fellow-citizens. In 
1894 he was appointed census taker by his 
friends" efforts, without his knowledge. In 



682 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



1896 he was elected townsliip clerk and after- 
wards was reelected, serving in all six years. 
His capable management of the clerk's office 
has resulted in general satisfaction through 
the township, and by his courteous and oblig- 
ing manner he has won hosts of friends. These 
regret the partial loss of hearing, which was 
caused by a serious accident in 1899. 




ACOB F. BOES, proprietor of a meat 
market at No. 705 Adams street, Bay 
City, is also the owner of a large stock 
and fruit farm near the city. He is 
one of the enterprising and progressive busi- 
ness men of this locality^ having risen to a posi- 
tion of importance in the community from the 
lowest round of the ladder. He was born at 
Port Washington, Ohio, July 12, 1862, and is 
a son of Charles J. and Caroline (Eckfield) 
Boes. 

Charles J. Boes was born in Birkenfeld, 
Germany, October 2, 1830, and died September 
15, 1881. His father, John Boes, was a wealthy 
dealer in linseed oil and was a manufacturer of 
linen on the river Rhine. Charles J. Boes was 
a young man when he came to America and lo- 
cated at once in Cleveland, Ohio, where he be- 
came a malt buyer for a big malting concern. 
He traveled extensively through New York 
State, Michigan and Canada until 1852, in 
which year he entered the employ of the Penn- 
S3dvania Railroad Company as construction 
foreman. He had charge of a gang of 1,000 
men in the construction of the "Panhandle" 
Railroad from Pittsburg to Columbus. He 
continued with that road until 1863 or 1864, 
then proceeded to Port Washington, Ohio, 
where he conducted a general store and meat 
market until 1872. In that year he moved to 
Coshocton, Ohio, where he leased and con- 



ducted a brewery with success for some years. 
In the winter of 1874-75 he purchased ice from 
Saginaw, Michigan, at $20 per ton F. O. B., 
but as he could not get a sufficient quantity 
$25,000 worth of beer was lost. He closed out 
the brewery and returned to Port Washington, 
where he went into the grocery and saloon bus- 
iness, at which he continued until his death. He 
was a Democrat in politics and served as alder- 
man and held other minor offices. He was a 
very popular man, was generous to a fault 
and a good friend to all who knew him. He 
married Caroline Eckfield, who was born in 
Birkenfeld, Germany, February 2, 1836, and 
was a daughter of Jacob Eckfield. who came 
to this country from Germany in 1840 and lived 
at Mount Eaton, Ohio, where he followed farm- 
ing. Eight children blessed this union, seven 
of whom grew up, namely : Caroline, wife of 
Edward J. Schmidt, of Unionville, Michigan; 
Elizabeth, deceased: Otto C, deceased; Jacob 
I". : George B., a carriage manufacturer of Bell- 
ingham, Washington; Christina, wife of Fred 
C. Leyer, of Unionville : and Theodore C. All 
were members of the German Lutheran Church. 
The Eckfield family is noted for its longevity, 
nearlv all reaching the age of 84 years or more. 
The father of Mrs. Boes died in 1875, aged 72 
years, while his wife attained the age of 84 
years. 

Jacob F. Boes received a common-school 
education and when 13 years old started to 
make his own way in the world, working on a 
farm for $8 per month. He continued until 
October of the same year, then served an ap- 
prenticeship of three years to the tanner's trade, 
working at this eight months of the year, the 
other four months being spent in a planing-mill 
and in attendance at night school. He next 
served two years at learning the butcher's trade, 
after which on April 21, 1883, he came to Bay 
City, his capital at that time being $73.20, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



683 



which he had saved out of his earnings. Two 
(lays later he began work for \V. E. Tapert, on 
Center avenue, and two months later for George 
W. Mansfield, with whom he remained until 
January 18, 1889. Two days later he entered 
the employ of L. Bertch & Son, and on August 
26, 1890, formed a partnership with E. \V. 
Funnell, under the firm name of Funnell & 
Boes. After one year the partnership was dis- 
solved and on September 14, 1891, he opened 
his i)resent meat shop. In 1896 he bought the 
old Partridge farm on the Tuscola road, where 
he lives and raises stock and fruit. He feeds 
more cattle than any man in Bay County, also 
sheep, hogs and poultry, and does much of his 
own killing. He is secretary of the Retail 
Butchers' Association. He is a member of 
Joppa Lodge, No. 315, F. & A. M. ; Lodge No. 
88, B. P. O. E., and Camp No. 1328, M. \V. A., 
being venerable councillor for three years, dur- 
ing which time the membership of the lodge 
was increased from 14 to 140 members. 

Jacob F. Boes was united in marriage with 
Katherine HofYmann, a daughter of Frank H. 
Hoffmann, of Bay City, who came here in 1854. 
This union resulted in the following issue : 
Lillian M.. aged 15 years; Helen L., aged 10 
years ; Katherine May, aged five years ; Dolores 
C, aged three years. Our subject and his wife 
are members of the German Lutheran Church. 




nWARD M. WRATTEN. a well- 
known and popular railroad official 
of Bay City, occupies the position of 
freight agent of the Detroit & Mack- 
inaw and Pere Marquette railroads. 

Mr. \V ratten was born in Utica. New York. 
March 29. 1845, 'Tifl '^ a son of Richard and 
yia.ry E. (Messenger) Wratten. 

Richard Wratten was born in Kent, Eng- 



lantl, where he learned the trade of a carpenter. 
He was a young, unmarried man when he came 
to iVmerica. After following his trade in New 
York City for some time, he went to Utica, 
New York, where he worked as a carpenter 
during the remainder of his active life. He 
married Mars- E. Messenger, a daughter of 
John Messenger, of Jamaica, Long Island, and 
later of Sodus, New York. Their union re- 
sulted in three children, namely : Edward M. ; 
Amy ( Mr.s. Dagwell), of Utica, New York; 
and Mary Elizabeth, who is married and re- 
sides in Utica. Richard Wratten died in 1898, 
at the age of 82 years, his wife having passed 
away in 1894. when 84 years old. Both were 
members of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 

Mr. Wratten's grandfather was a native of 
Kent, England, and a carpenter by trade. He 
came to America at the same time as did his 
son Richard, and for many years carried on 
business as a carpenter and joiner in Utica. He 
lived to the age of 88 years. On the maternal 
side, Mr. Wratten's great-grandfather (Mes- 
senger) was an early settler on Long Island. 

The subject of this sketch attended the pub- 
lic schools of Utica. and after completing his 
early mental training was emploj^ed as clerk 
in a store until 1871. In that year he came to 
Michigan and located in Bay City, where he en- 
tered the employ of the Flint & Pere Marquette 
Railroad Com])any, as a clerk in the freight 
office. In the course of time he was promoted 
to be cashier, and in 1888 was again promoted 
to the position of freight agent. 

At the beginning of Mr. Wratten's service 
with the company here, l)ut three men includ- 
ing himself, were employed in the freight office. 
The number of clerks and warehouse men now 
employed in the freight department in Bay 
City is 26. Much of the increase in business 
indicated by this fact is attributed to the faith- 
ful management of Mr. Wratten. 



684 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



The subject of this sketch was married to 
Hester Jane White, a daughter of Thomas 
Wiiite, of Utica, New York. Four sons re- 
suhed from their union, namely: Arthur D.. of 
Bay City, warehouse foreman for the Pere 
Marquette Railroad Company; and three who 
died in infancy. Mrs. Wratten died in Janu- 
ary, 1902, aged 55 years. She was a member 
of Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church of Bay 
City. 

In politics, Mr. Wratten is a Republican, 
Init is not ambitious for political preferment. 
Fraternally, he is a member of Joppa Lodge, 
No. 315, F. & A. M.: Blanchard Chapter, No. 
59, R. A. M. ; Bay City Commandery, No. 26, 
K. T. : and Moslem Temple, A. A. O. N. M. 
S., of Detroit. 




DWARD C. BABCOCK, a well- 
known citizen of Bay City, is engaged 
in the business of a general decorator 
and dealer in wall-paper and painters" 
supplies. 

Mr. Babcock was born in Buffalo, New 
York, February 3, 1861, and is a son of Ed- 
ward V. and Sarah (Cornwell) Babcock. His 
father was a native of the same city, and 
learned the painters' and decorators' trade when 
a boy. This he followed as a journeyman in 
Buffalo until 1865. He then came to Bay City 
and pursued the same occupation about six 
years. At that period he established the busi- 
ness which the subject of this sketch now car- 
ries on. He was the first man engaged in this 
line of work in Bay City, and was active until 
the time of his death, which occurred in 1896. 
at the age of 56 years. His first location was at 
No. 508 Jackson street. 

Edward ^'. Babcock married Sarah Corn- 
well, of Buffalo, and thev had three children. 



namely: Edward C. : George R., of Portland, 
Alichigan ; and Lucy, wife of Louis Koch, of 
Bay City. The father of this family attended 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which his 
widow is a member. Fraternally, he was a 
member of Bay City Lodge, No. 129, F. & 
A. M., of which he was worshipful master sev- 
eral years. He also belonged to Blanchard 
Chapter, No. 59, R. A. M., of which he was 
past high priest ; and to Bay City Commandery, 
No. 26, K. T. 

Edwin Babcock, the father of Edwin V., 
was a native of Buft'alo, New York. There 
when a boy he learned the carpenter's trade, 
and pursued that vocation throughout his life. 
The subject of this sketch received his early 
mental training in the public schools of Bay 
City, after which he learned the trade of painter 
and decorator with his father. He also gave 
considerable study to portrait and figure work, 
in which line he is the only artist in the city. 
He was in business with his father from 1884 
until the latter's death under the firm name of 
E. V. Babcock & Son. 

In 1896 Mr. Babcock opened a store at No. 
909 Center avenue, where he continued two 
years, and then moved to No. 816 Washington 
avenue, where he remained until 1905, when 
he located in his own building on Jefferson 
street, near the Pere Marquette Railroad Sta- 
tion. This was formerly the home of Devlin's 
Business College. At first Mr. Babcock merely 
dealt in wall-paper, paints and oils. Now he 
does an extensive business throughout the State 
in decorating churches and theaters and resi- 
dences of the higher grade. He has done work 
on about 50 churches outside of Bay County 
and employs on an a\-erage 20 men throughout 
the year. 

Mr. Babcock married Rosa Belle Schune- 
man, a daughter of Isaac N. Schuneman. of 
^Metamora. ^Michigan, and thev have one son. — 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



685 



Harry N. The family attend the Congrega- 
tional Church. Politically. Mr. Babcock ie a 
Republican, and has .ser\-ed a term as member 
of the Board of Education. He is not an as- 
pirant for office. 

I'raternally, the suliject of this sketch is a 
32d degree Mason, being a member of Joppa 
Lodge, No. 315, F. & A. M. ; Michigan Sov- 
ereign Consistory, S. P. R. S., at Detroit; and 
Moslem Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., at Detroit. 
He is also a member of the Maccabees and of 
the Modern Woodmen of America. 




ELSON LETOURNEAU, who is a 
successful farmer and prosperous 
merchant in section 9, Kawkawlin 
township, and the owner of a farm of 
40 acres here and of 160 acres in section 2, 
Garfield township, was born in the Province of 
Quebec, Canada, in 1846, and is a son of 
Eustache and Zoe (Ramon) Letourneau. 

The parents of Mr. Letourneau were of 
French extraction. The father lived to the age 
of 76 years, l)ut the mother died when our sub- 
ject was an infant. Of their 18 children, only 
two remain, — Nelson and Joseph, the latter of 
whom owns a 40-acre farm in section 9, Kaw- 
kawlin township. 

Our subject was only a child when his 
father settled at Chatham. Ontario, and he 
worked there as a laborer until 1880 and then 
came to Michigan. He had learned the car- 
penter's trade and was employed for 10 years 
in F. W. Wheeler's shipyard in West Bay City, 
being a master workman in the ship carpen- 
ters' and caulkers' union. In 1891 he bought 
40 acres of land in the northwest corner of sec- 
tion 9, Kawkawlin township, which he has 
operated ever since in connection with a gen- 
eral store. In 1902 he bought his second farm. 



— 160 acres of good land in section 2, Garfield 
township. 

Mr. Letourneau was married first on May 
18, 1868, to Elizabeth Pachett, who died in 
1874, the mother of five children: Elizabeth 
(La Pane), deceased, who left one daughter, 
Elizabeth; Noel, who died aged 16 years; 
Emma (Duroshire), deceased, who left one 
daughter, Louise; Gilbert, who married Caro- 
line Poirer and has five children; and Rosa, 
who married James Lagenness and has four 
children. In April. 1882, Mr. Letourneau was 
married to Maggie De Lisle, born in Canada, 
who died July 20, 1890, leaving two children, 
now deceased. Mr. Letourneau's third union 
was to Fanny Dupuis, who was born in Canada, 
and is a daughter of Boniface and Matilda 
(La Bounte) Dupuis. 

During his residence in West Bay City, Mr. 
Letourneau took an active interest in city af- 
fairs and served as alderman of the First Ward 
for four years. He served also as school di- 
rector and has held this position in Kawkawlin 
township for three years. He is a consistent 
member of the Catholic Church. 




DWARD E. EVANS, the rising young 
man of afifairs, alderman and prom- 
inent fraternity man, modest as he is 
popular, was born at Selkirk, Prov- 
ince of Ontario, Canada, November 5, 1873. 

The whirr and buzz of Bay City's many 
sawmills attracted many people from Queen 
Victoria's domain about 1882, and among the 
number was the Evans family. They came pre- 
pared to make their way by dint of hard and 
honest labor, and their expectations were not 
disappointed. 

Edward E. Evans received a good common- 
school education and although always a mere 



686 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



mite of a boy, early began life in Bousfield & 
Company's woodenware works in the South 
End. For three years he worked in the Leaver 
& Vance box factory, part of the time cutting- 
boxes by the thousand on contract, with Orpha 
Coffin, since deceased, and demonstrating thus 
early the qualities of enterprise and energy, 
that have since given him marked prominence 
and success in other fields. Desiring a still 
wider field of action, he entered the coal busi- 
ness with Charles Coryell in 1896, remaining 
for three years, and then taking a larger posi- 
tion with C. H. Klumph & Company in 1899, 
until in 1901 he became the active manager for 
Boutell Brothers & Company, the largest dis- 
tributor of coal, cement, brick and masons' sup- 
plies in this part of the State. The success at- 
tending his well-directed efforts in this new 
field has earned for him the appreciation of the 
company, and the plaudits of the business com- 
munity. 

Though charged with the supervision of ex- 
tensive and varied business interests, he has 
managed to find time for devoted and appre- 
ciated public service, being elected alderman of 
the I ith Ward by the largest popular vote ever 
given a ward candidate on the Republican 
ticket. He was reelected in April, 1905, for 
two years service on the first Council of Greater 
Bay City, and is chairman of the important 
committees on judiciary and ways and means. 
He has brought to his public duties the same 
exacting business methods and integrity that 
have brought him success on other fields of en- 
deavor. The "Midget" of the City Council, 
tipping the scales at little above the century 
mark, he has in his brief public service made 
his presence felt along lines of public enter- 
prise, tempered with sound business judgment. 

Mr. Evans became a member of the Bay 
City lodge of Elks in 1899, and almost imme- 
diately was honored with official positions by 



the antlered tribe. He was a knight for two 
terms, and exalted ruler for two terms, stepping 
out of this position to accept "the rumpled and 
wrinkled robe of District Deputy for Eastern 
Michigan which has been ironed out and prop- 
erly creased, and it now enfolds, by virtue of 
Grand Exalted Ruler O'Brien's dictum, the 
small stature but mighty form of Aid. Ed. E. 
Evans of Bay City," to quote the exact an- 
nouncement made by The Friendly Elk, upon 
the promotion made in April, 1905, the recip- 
ient of the honor being too surprised to adjust 
the rolie properly, until he had the commission, 
under the great seal of the order, and this com- 
mission verified by wire through Grand Esquire 
Phelps, as the real thing and no counterfeit. 
Deputy Grand Exalted Ruler Evans was the 
representative to the Grand Lodge meeting at 
Cincinnati in 1904, and is one of the best known 
and most popular members of the order in 
Michigan. Equally exemplary has been his 
home life, being ever a devoted husband and 
fond father. In public or private life. Aid. 
Evans is one of those favored few, whose 
friends are indeed lesion. 



HARLES F. KUHLOW, deputy 
county treasurer of Bay County, and 
one of the prominent and influential 
men of affairs at Bay City, was born 
in Bay City, January 21, 1874, and is a son of 
John and Caroline (Zahrt) Kuhlow. 

The paternal grandparents of Mr. Kuhlow 
were Frederick and Maria (Erdman) Kuhlow, 
both of whom were born in Mecklenburg, Ger- 
manv. In 1873 Frederick Kuhlow came to 
Michigan and settled in Bay County. He be- 
came an employee of a lumber company at Bay 
City and was injured in one of the sawmills 
two vears later, which incapacitated him for the 




DAVID H. YOUNG 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



689 



rest of liis life. He died in Monitor township. 
His five children were : John, of Monitor town- 
ship ; William, of Bay City ; Fredericka, w'ife of 
John Black, of Monitor township ; Frederick, 
of Bay City; and Lena. 

John Kuhlow, father of our subject, was 
born in 1844 at Strelitz, Mecklenburg, Ger- 
many. He was reared on the parental farm un- 
til he had reached the age of military service 
and then served in the army during the Franco- 
Prussian War. In the fall of 1872 he came to 
Bay City, where a brother was already settled, 
and for several years he was engaged in the 
lumbering industry, but later w^ent into con- 
tracting, owning a team of horses. In 1891 he 
moved to Monitor township and settled on a 
farm which he had taken up soon after coming 
to the county, and he has resided upon that 
property ever since. He is a supporter of the 
Republican party but is a man of domestic 
tastes and quiet life and has never desired po- 
litical office. His marriage with Caroline 
Zahrt resulted in the birth of five children, the 
two survivors of the family being : Charles F., 
the efficient deputy county treasurer, and Gus- 
tave. Both ]\Ir. and Mrs. Kuhlow are con- 
sistent members of the German Lutheran 
Church. 

Our subject enjoyed the educational ad- 
vantages offered by the German Lutheran par- 
ochial schools and later the public schools of 
Bay City. After the completion of his educa- 
tion, he learned the trade of bookbinder and 
paper ruler, one which he followed first at Chi- 
cago and later at Detroit. In 1899 he re- 
turned to Bay City and embarked in a book- 
binding business of his ow-n, one which he con- 
ducted with satisfactory success for several 
years, but increased business brought about the 
necessity of a partnership and he associated 
w-ith him O. W. Widman, the firm style becom- 
ing Widnian & Kuhlow. This continued until 
37 



the latter part of 1902, at which time other du- 
ties demanded his attention and he sold his 
interest. 

I\Ir. Kuhlow's life-long fidelity to the Re- 
publican party was recognized about this time 
by his appointment to the position of deputy 
county treasurer of Bay County. This position 
Mr. Kuhlow still fills, his services giving entire 
satisfaction to the public at large. 

Mr. Kuhlow has one of the very pleasant 
and attractive homes of Bay City. He married 
Alma Zagelmeyer, who is a daughter of Alex- 
ander Zagelmeyer. 

In addition to being prominent in political 
and business life, Mr. Kuhlow has long been 
active in several fraternal organizations. He is 
a member of Joppa Lodge, No. 315, F. & A. 
M. ; McCormick Grand Lodge of Perfection; 
Bay City Council. Princes of Jerusalem ; Sag- 
inaw Valley Chapter, Rose Croix, all of Bay 
City; and Michigan Sovereign Consistory, 
S. P. R. S., and Moslem Temple, A. A. O. N. 
M. S., of Detroit. He is also an Elk and a 
Knight of Pythias and a member of the Na- 
tional League of Veterans and Sons. From 
1892 to 1894 he was a member of Company C, 
Third Infantrv, Michigan National Guard. 




AVID H. YOUNG. The late David 
H. Young, whose portrait is shown 
on the opposite page, was one of the 
most highly respected citizens of Bay 
County, Michigan, and at the time of his death 
owned 140 acres of fine land in sections 15 and 
22, Alonitor township. Mr. Young was bom 
December 6, 1833, in Schoharie County, New 
York, and died in his comfortable home in 
Monitor township, on September 6, 1900, aged 
67 years. 

Mr. Young's residence in Bay County dated 
from 1 87 1, when he came to West Bay City as 



690 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



overseer of Henry W. Sage's salt-block. Mr. 
Sage owned one of the first salt-pits in this 
section, and, through Mr. Young's careful and 
economic management, this industry reached 
immense proportions. He continued as a valued 
employee of Mr. Sage until 1888. For seven 
years he made salt by the barrel and during his 
whole period with Mr. Sage was regarded by 
the latter as his "right hand man." 

While Mr. Young's duties confined him 
to the salt-pits, he looked forward to the time 
when he could retire from that arduous work 
and settle down to peace and rest on his own 
farm. He therefore bought several tracts of 
well-located land, — one of 60 acres and an- 
other of 80. These he hired cleared and put 
under cultivation, making the second tract his 
home, to which he retired in 1898. For some 
10 years Mr. Young enjoyed an agricultural 
life, growing on his fertile fields the crops best 
adapted to them and carrying on a large dairy, 
selling the milk product of 50 cows. 

In 1870, Mr. Young was united in mar- 
riage with Elizabeth Davis, who was born in 
Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. She had one 
brother, Charles Davis, whom she lost sight 
of some 40 years ago. She accompanied Mr. 
Young to Bay County and materially assisted 
him during the early days, when hardships in 
this section were many and comforts few. She 
still survives and resides on the homestead. 

Mr. Young was always identified with the 
Democratic party and, while he never would 
accept any office, he took a lively interest in 
his party's success. He was a charter member 
of Wenona Council, No. 38, Royal Arcanum, 
of West Bay City. His religion was one which 
must be recognized as a good one both to live 
and die by, a conscientious following of the 
"Golden Rule." He is remembered by all who 
knew him as a hearty, whole-souled, liberal. 
God-fearing man. 




APT. AUGUSTUS H. GANSSER, 
the editor and compiler of the his- 
torical features of this volume, whose 
portrait is shown on page 16 of this 
work, was born among the foot-hills of the 
Alps, in Wurtemberg, Germany, July 5, 1872. 
The quaint little village nestling among vine- 
clad heights lies on the headwaters of the 
Xeckar, one of the main tributaries of "Father 
Rhine." Its rushing waters turned the old 
water-wheel of the primitive sawmill which for 
generations had been owned and operated by 
the Gansser family. The quaint old church, 
where he worshiped in his youth, had then cele- 
brated its 350th anniversary, and his ancestors 
dated back their direct lineage even centuries 
beyond that period. Among the weather- 
beaten stone crosses in the churchyard ceme- 
tery, the young student delighted to decipher 
the names of both branches of his family, who 
had helped to build that church and the chapel 
that had preceded it. In the old town hall 
were records that proved that the ancestors of 
both father and mother had stood high in the 
military annals of the "Fatherland," while 
others had served with equal loyalty, but less 
public clamor, in the pursuits of the sciences 
and the arts of peace. 

Captain Gansser's grandfather, surnamed 
Augustus, according to time-honored family 
tradition took an active part in the revolution- 
ary movement in Germany in 1848, and only 
his previous good service for his king and 
country saved him from banishment. But the 
sacrifices then made brought the family into 
financial difficulties, which eventually lirought 
the last survivor of the family to Michigan in 
1873. Peter Baur, grandfather of our subject 
on his mother's side, was for over 30 years dis- 
trict treasurer and moderator, positions of 
trust held by his family for many generations 
before him, a faniilv heirloom. like the sur- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



691 



name Peter. His only son, also named Peter, 
died at 21, leaving' as the last sprig of the fam- 
ily tree, the daughter, Johanna. 

Augustus Gansser, the father of Captain 
Gansser, was educated at the University of 
Tubingen, but early found the confines of the 
little kingdom too narrow for his roving na- 
ture. Before marriage he traveled almost 
around the globe, his trip including a stay 
among the gold fields of Australia. Returning 
to take up the burden which age compelled his 
father to surrender, he wooed and won Miss 
Baur in 1865. The first three children died in 
infancy, but Emma (now Mrs. R. Boehringer) 
and the subject of this sketch brightened the 
lives of their grandparents' declining years. 
Both families would survive through these in- 
fants, and to the good old people who prized 
their family tree above all else, this meant 
much. 

By 1872 a business depression throughout 
Germany brought the climax to the entangle- 
ments of the sawmill and gypsum properties, 
and reluctantly enough the family relinquished 
this heirloom of many generations to 
strangers. Hearing of the "big mill" in 
Wenona. the head of the family determined to 
apply his practical sawmill experience in the 
heart of the world's lumber industry in Bay 
County, and that very year began life anew as 
gang foreman for Henry \V. Sage on the W'est 
Side. Emma accompanied her parents, while 
Augustus H.. the immediate subject of this 
sketch, remained with his grandpai'ents, at their 
earnest solicitation. One by one the old folks 
passed away. Grandfather Baur dying after 
only a few days illness in the fall of 1880. The 
following March his daughter returned to the 
old home to straighten up family affairs, and in 
June the little lad, who never remembered see- 
ing his mother, and who had studied assidu- 
ouslv in the German di.strict school, was united 



with his family at Bay City. Eugenia and 
Emil, born on the West Side in the meantime, 
and Emma took the little foreign stranger to 
the Sherman School, and for two years he 
worked hard to master a new language, trying 
experiences never to be forgotten by the prin- 
cipal. 

In June, 1884, Augustus H. Gansser grad- 
uated from the Ninth grade and was admitted 
to the High School. The loss of father left 
the little family entirely dependent upon the 
invalid mother that summer, and the oldest son 
assisted by working before and after school, 
for local newspapers as carrier and mailing 
clerk. That fall he secured, in addition, a po- 
sition with B. H. Briscoe & Company, then a 
box factory (in 1905 the Quaker Shade Roller 
Company), which he held for three years, con- 
tinuing his newspaper work evenings, and 
studying nights. In 1887 August Rathke was 
accidentally killed at this factory while he and 
our subject were adjusting a broken lielt. and 
this fatality changed the whole course of the 
young man's life. His mother insisted other 
fields might be less remunerative at first, but 
they offered a wider field, were less dangerous, 
and within a week he began more than nine 
years experience in the carpet department of 
Capt. A. J. Cooke (formerly See Brothers & 
Cooke), for many years subsequently, city 
librarian. 

In 1897 our subject was given charge of the 
carpet and curtain department for the Bay City 
Cash Dry Goods Company, which position he 
held when President McKinley's call for vol- 
unteers brought him to the colors in 1898. He 
had enlisted in the Peninsulars, June 16. 1892, 
and been promoted, through competitive exam- 
inations, to I St sergeant. Company C, Third 
Michigan Infantry, by 1897. Shortly before 
war was declared he was united in marriage to 
Elizab.eth Almira Henrietta Richardson, daugh- 



692 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



ter of Mr. and Airs. Robert Richardson, of the 
West Side, and wlien on April 26, 1898, he 
marched fortli with his company he left in care 
of his brother Emil not onh' the aged mother 
and two sisters, but also a young, brave but dis- 
consolate bride. Rejected tlirough a technical 
error on the regular army medical examination, 
later corrected, he became a member of Com- 
pany D, 34th Michigan Vol. Inf., and orderly 
to Colonel Petermann, commanding: the reel- 
ment, having charge of the regiment's mail at 
Camp Eaton, Camp Alger, Virginia, and much 
of the time before Santiago. The regimental 
staff correspondent of the Detroit Tribune and 
Evening Nezvs declined to go to Cuba, and at 
the last moment the assignment was given Cap- 
tain Gansser, and during the stirring scenes 
before Santiago, in addition to his regular mil- 
itary duties, he did his best to keep the people 
of Michigan informed of the doings of their 
regiments serving with General Shafter's Fifth 
Army Corps, through the Detroit Tribune, 
Muskegon Chronicle, Detroit Netcs, Bay City 
Times and Bay City Freie Presse. On July 3d, 
when the hospitals in the rear of the San Juan 
battle-field and the supply trains for the front 
were being fired on by Spanish sharpshooters 
from the chaparral west of General Shafter's 
headquarters, he volunteered with 20 members 
of his regiment under Lieut. Angus McDonald, 
for special duty with regulars to clear the San 
Juan valley of these bushwhackers, and for 10 
days, armed with Krag-Jorgensen rifles and 
ammunition secured from the dead American 
regulars, this detachment did its share of the 
work in protecting the extreme right flank of 
the army. Tropical heat and insect pests made 
trailing through the rocky and wooded heights 
near Santiago an arduous task, and a number 
of that detachment were so weakened by the 
strain, that the first attack of prevailing fevers, 
shortly after the surrender, brought death. 



Some weeks after the surrender (July 17, 
1898) were spent in guarding the prisoners 
and in a vain endeavor to make a tropical camp 
in the rainy season habitable for men direct 
from the North. Devoted nursing saved many, 
and peace brought speedy relief, yet 21 of that 
fated company of 86 gave their lives for "Cuba 
Libre." Assisting the sick of the regiment on 
the homeward trip, the robust volunteer of 
April, weighing 154 pounds, came home in 
September, a mere skeleton, weighing 118 
pounds on arriving at Detroit. Then followed 
months of intermittent fever and ague, cam- 
paign reminders that spasmodically torment to 
this day. Outdoor life, nature's best remedy, 
prevented a return to former avocations and 
perforce Captain Gansser entered the insurance 
and free lance newspaper field. In 1902 with 
a class of 48 he took the civil service examina- 
tion at Detroit, standing sixth, being appointed 
United States ganger for the Michigan Chemi- 
cal Company, a position he still holds. 

Mrs. Johanna Gansser, the devoted mother, 
died May 29, 1902, in her 60th year. She 
lived to see two little girls bless the home of 
her daughter, and four sons the home of Cap- 
tain Gansser, three of whom survive, — Emil 
Augustus, Webster Homer and Victor Lincoln. 

Since 1898 Captain Gansser's promotion in 
the State militia service has been rapid. He 
was commissioned ist lieutenant and adjutant 
by Governor Pingree in June, 1899, ^d lieu- 
tenant of Company B, July 17. 1900, and cap- 
tain commanding Company B, by Governor 
Bliss, May 15, 1901, being in 1905 senior cap- 
tain of the regiment. With Company B, he 
had the distinction of being Alichigan's sole 
military representatives and body guard 
to Governor Bliss at the Louisiana Purchase 
Exposition, October 8 to 17, 1904. 

Always an active Republican, yet never 
seeking an office, he was secretary of the Re- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



693 



publican County Committee for four )-ears, 
1 898- 1 902, and for 10 years past has com- 
manded the marching dix'isions of the Young 
Mcn"s Republican League. He is editor and 
pubHshed of The Modern Archer; a regular 
contributor to various journals; for nine 3'ears 
secretary of the local Clerks' Association ; mem- 
ber of the Knights of Pythias, Arbeiter Unter- 
stuetzung \^erein and Spanish \Var Veterans; 
is inspector general. National League of Vet- 
erans and Sons ; member of the Modern Wood- 
men of America, Union Life Guards, Knights 
of the Loyal Guard and Modern Archers of 
America. As a citizen. Captain (iansser has 
always been ready to assist wortliy public en- 
terprises, intended to benefit the city of his 
adopted home. 




ERMAN RUTERBUSH, whose ex- 
cellent farm of 70 acres is situated in 
section 7, Portsmouth township, 
township treasurer and leading citi- 
zen generally, was torn December 11, 1852, in 
Pommerania, Prussia, Germany, and is a son 
of Charles and Minnie (Dummert) Ruterbush. 
The parents of Mr. Ruterbush were farm- 
ing people in Germany and moved to Canada 
in 1866. Charles Ruterbush was born March 
30, 1819. and found in his declining years a 
comfortable home with our subject. He died 
January 19, 1905. His wife, Minnie Dum- 
mert, was born January 13, 1832, in Germany, 
and died in Michigan, February 26, 1889, aged 
57 years. Of their 14 children, three sons and 
five daughters still survive, all of whom reside 
in Bay County. 

Prior to leaving his German home. Herman 
Ruterbush had attended school regularly. The 
family reached Quebec in 1866 and settled in 
the village of Arnprior, Ontario. 40 miles from 



Ottawa, removing later to Stratford, Ontario. 
After three years in that section, the family 
settled at Port Huron, Michigan, in 1871 and 
came to Bay City in 1873. Previous to settling 
on the present farm which was originally taken 
up by the family and contained 144 acres, our 
subject was variously employed, mainly in saw- 
mills. After locating on the farm, there was 
plenty of work to be done by his brothers and 
himself as the whole tract was heavily tim- 
bered. They cleared the land and put it under 
cultivation. On his portion of the property Mr. 
Ruterbush built his fine brick home, one of 
modern construction and convenience and prob- 
ably one of the very best farm houses in the 
county. With this handsome dwelling he has 
two substantial l)arns and numerous other 
buildings. 

In addition to general farming and stock- 
raising, Mr. Ruterbush has utilized his fine 
pasture land in raising a first-class grade of 
milch cows and for six and a half years oper- 
ated a milk route in Bay City, but now he sells 
exclusively at wholesale. He has experimented 
extensively and successfully with sugar beets. 

On January 16, 1884, Mr. Ruterbush was 
married to Rose Hubner. who was born iSLirch 
3. 1861, in Bay City. Michigan, and is a daugh- 
ter of Charles and Margaret (Steinbauer) 
Hubner, natives of Bavaria, Germany. Upon 
coming to this country, Mr. Hubner settled on 
a farm in Portsmouth township and both he 
and his wife spent their last days on their 
homestead. Mr. and Mrs. Ruterbush have lost 
four children, namely : Herman, the oldest 
child, who died when two and a half years old; 
Max, the second child, who died when a few- 
days old; Carl, who died aged eight years; and 
Norman, who died four days later, aged 18 
months. In 1900 five of the children were 
stricken at one time with that dread disease, 
diphtheria, and little Carl and Norman did not 



694 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



recover. The survivors of the family are : 
Ahna, Elsie, Hugo, Otto and Martin Bern- 
hardt. The family belong to the German Lu- 
theran Church in Merritt township. 

Mr. Ruterbush has always been identified 
with the Republican party and on many occa- 
sions he has been called upon to serve his fel- 
low-citizens in responsible positions. In 1889 
he was elected township treasurer, served two 
terms, was again elected in 1893 and once more 
in 1894 and is now serving in the office. He is 
a man of sterling character, and has the con- 
fidence of all who know him and stands as one 
of the representative men of his locality. 




ORLD'S STAR KNITTING COM- 
PANY, one of the great industries 
of Bay County, was organized in 
the spring of 1895 at West Bay 
City by its present officers, members of the 
Galbraith family. The story of its rise, from 
an experiment conducted within the confines 
of the domestic circle, to the building of great 
factories and the equipping of them with mod- 
ern machinery, in order to meet the world's 
demand, is one of the most interesting con- 
nected with the growth of this city's many gi- 
gantic concerns. Archibald Galbraith, the 
founder of the business, still survives. 

Mr. Galbraith was born in Ayrshire, Scot- 
land, December 25, 1845, ^""^^ '^ ^ ^o" °^ Don- 
ald and Catherine Galbraith, who came to Can- 
ada in the boyhood of their son. They settled 
near Toronto and there Archibald was reared 
and attended the schools of Durham District. 
The father engaged in lumbering, but the son 
preferred a less active life and engaged in bus- 
iness in a grocery store at Bowmanville. Later 
he embarked in a dry goods business for him- 
self, at Guelph, which he continued until 1892. 



He was gifted with natural mechanical ability 
and it was during his mercantile life that he 
saw what might be accomplished if a high 
grade of hosiery could be placed on the market 
at a reasonable price and manufactured with- 
out a large outlay. He entered upon the bus- 
iness as an experiment, with hand knitting ma- 
chines, and manufactured a very superior ar- 
ticle for his own retail trade. The business 
increased rapidly, the experiment proving a 
success, so much so that in 1890 he disposed 
of his store and devoted all his energies to the 
manufacture of hosiery for the wholesale trade. 
He was prospering and a bright future seemed 
before him, when the financial panic of 1892 
brought embarrassment upon him as to the 
number of large concerns which he carried on 
his books, and the result was absolute failure. 

Mr. Galbraith then came to West Bay City. 
He still had faith in the line of business that 
he had developed, and started in again with a 
few hand knitting machines, all of the busi- 
ness being confined to the family circle. One 
memlier disposed of the product by canvassing 
from house to house and met with most encour- 
aging success. The capital with which Mr. 
Galbraith and family began operations at West 
Bay City consisted of two hand knitting ma- 
chines and $100, and the product had to be 
finished by hand. Within the first six months 
the orders exceeded the capacity of the work- 
ers and it became necessary to employ help, this 
being but the beginning of the expansion which 
has continued to the present day. 

Early in January, 1899, the business was 
moved to Bay City and a store was opened at 
No. 410 Washington avenue in which to retail 
the finished product, but two years later the 
store was discontinued as that room was re- 
quired for additional manufacturing purposes. 
In the spring of 1901 the company built an ad- 
dition to the store and soon was obliged to rent 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



69: 



an adjoining store at No. 412 Washington 
avenue, all the space being used for factory pur- 
poses. In July, 1902, the company purchased 
the McDonald flouring mill property. This 
they remodeled to suit the requirements of their 
business, equipped it with the best of modern 
machinery which enabled them to still turn out 
the best of goods with less cost of production. 
The business still continued to expand, making 
necessary, in 1905, still larger additions. The 
company has a main building 96 by 180 feet, 
with three stories and basement, and the ma- 
chinery is operated by electricity. The com- 
pany has a modern power plant for generating 
electricity which is conducted to the individual 
motors connected directly with each machine. 
This does away with shafting and belting and 
not only materially adds to the cleanliness of 
the work and surroundings but also to the 
safety of the employees. This plant furnishes 
employment to 200 operators, while 500 sales- 
men are required to carry the finished product 
to consumers, the policy of the house continu- 
ing the same as at its beginning, the selling of 
the product directly from factory to home, one 
which the remarkable growth of the business 
has shown to be satisfactory to all concerned. 
The company has recently opened another 
department, installing machinery in its newest 
mill for the knitting of underwear. Each gar- 
ment is custom made, built according to the 
measurements of the purchaser. This prom- 
ises to be one of the most appreciated depart- 
ments, people of taste gladly supplying them- 
selves with garments so perfect in fit and finish. 
The company has been so well managed that 
there has been little or no friction. It has been 
generous in providing comforts and conven- 
iences for its employees, facilities being af- 
forded for providing hot meals at the factory, 
and a rest room has been set aside where all 
the luxuries of a home may be enjoyed during 



the periods of relaxation, including the supply- 
ing of periodicals and other literature. A cor- 
dial feeling of mutual esteem makes this great 
hive of industry like one big family. 

One of the main factors in the almost un- 
paralleled success of this company has been the 
maintenance of the quality of the goods with- 
out fluctuations in price^ regardless of the cost 
of material. Another has been the marketing 
of the goods through agents directly to the con- 
sumer. In 1899 the business was incorporated 
as the Bay City Knitting Company and under 
this name its goods have gone all over the 
world. For this very reason the name became 
too local and one of wider significance became 
a matter of policy. Thus it came about, that 
in 1905, the old name was abandoned and the 
present one — World's Star Knitting Company 
— was adopted, which is more in consonance 
w^ith the great territory covered by the com- 
pany's sales. Through all the changes and 
growth of this great industry, Mr. Galbraith 
has been one of its leading spirits and to his 
courage, perseverance, judgment and ability, 
much of its success is due. He continues the 
master mechanic of the mills. 

Mr. Galbraith was married in Canada to 
Angeline Van Camp, who was a daughter of 
Thomas Van Camp, a resident of Durham Dis- 
trict. She died in 1880, leaving two children: 
Clarence A. and David Leonard. The former 
was born March 24, 1873, 'i"<^l '^^^ '^^^" asso- 
ciated with the business since its inception. He 
is now the capable superintendent of the fac- 
tory. He is a well-known citizen, respected in 
business circles all over the country, and is a 
member of the Knights of the Loyal Guards. 
The second son. David Leonard, was Ixirn 
April 24, 1877 and he, too, has always been 
connected with the family concern. He is now 
the secretary and treasurer of the company, and 
in addition has charge of the office and man- 



696 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



ages the selling force. He is a member of the 
Knights of the Loyal Guards ; Eden Tent, No. 
225, Knights of the Modern Maccabees, and 
is an of^cial in Lodge No. 88, B. P. O. E. 
He married Helen Pearl, who is a daughter of 
Anton Pearl, of Bay City, and they have one 
son, Stuart Dranoel. 

In 1882 Mr. Galbraith was married to Els- 
peth MacRobb, who was liorn at Oshawa, On- 
tario. They have one son, Frederick Norman. 
The family has always been identified with the 
Presbyterian Church. Mr. Galbraith belongs 
to the Canadian Order of Foresters. 



x 



ALENTINE KNODLE, a prosperous 
farmer of Bay County, whose farm is 
located in section 20, Eraser town- 
ship, was born in Germany in 1836, 
and when an infant was brought to America by 
his parents. They lived on the corner of Clin- 
ton and Scranton streets, Rochester, New 
York, and in that home two more children were 
born to them : Peter, who died in Bay City in 
1903: and John, who died in the army during 
the Civil War. 

The father of our subject was a soldier in 
Company I. 161 st Reg., New York Vol. Inf. 
and served in Grover's division during General 
Banks' expedition. He died in the Soldiers' 
Home at Bath, New York, in his 85th year. 
The mother died when she was about 84 years 
old. 

The subject of this sketch attended school 
in Rochester, New York, and when the family 
moved to Danville, Livingston County, New 
York, he went to work on a farm. In 1864 he 
came to Bay City and was employed in boiling 
salt, continuing thus for 13 years. In 1S75 he 
located on his present farm of 80 acres. It 
was then a dense forest, and Mr. Knodle has 



cleared every foot of the tract, having logs piled 
40 feet high. He now has a fine orchard of 
100 trees, covering two acres, and is engaged in 
general farming- and stock-raising. He is also 
occupied in threshing. 

On November 17, 1859, Mr. Knodle was 
married to Christiana Sick, a daughter of 
Philip and Christiana (Kiefer) Sick, both na- 
tives of Germany, who were engaged in farm- 
ing near Danville, New York. 

Mr. and Mrs. Knodle have had eight chil- 
dren, as follows: Sophia, Julia C, William, 
Catherine, Charles, Frank E., Lewis Henry and 
Doroth}'. Sophia was born in Danville, New 
York, January 4, i860. She is the wife of 
James Coughill, and lives at Harbor Beach, 
Michigan. Julia C. was born November 19, 
1862. She married John Lameraux, and has 
eight children, among which are the following: 
Thomas, Isabelle. Martha, Hollis, Pearl and 
Dewey. William was born April 3, 1864. 
Catherine was born November 5, 1865. She 
married Hugh Dining, and has five children : 
Lilly, Sophia, Valentine, Pearl and Roy. 
Charles was born November 8, 1867; Frank E. 
was born September 29, 1874. Lewis Henry 
and Dorothy are deceased. 

In political action, the subject of this sketch 
is a Republican. Fraternally he is a Mason. 
He is a member of the German Lutheran 
Church. 




ON. JAMES VANKLEECK, soldier, 
lawyer and statesman, was born in 
Exeter. Monroe County, Michigan, 
September 26, 1846. He is a direct 
descendant on the parental side of Baltus Van- 
Kleeck, who came to New York from Holland 
in 1 610. His grandfather moved across the 
Canadian border, where his father, Robert 
\'anKleeck. was born and grew to manhood, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



697 



later seeking again the land of his forefathers, 
by coming to Michigan. 

James VanKleeck was an ambitious student 
in the Monroe High School, when I'ort Sumter 
was fired on, and he promptly came forward 
when less than 16 years old, in answ^er to Abra- 
ham Lincoln's call for volunteers. But none of 
the first regiments would ha\'e him as he was 
too young and too small. But he was not to 
be denied the privilege of serving his country, 
and in 1862 his patriotic ardor triumphed over 
the scruples of the commander of Company D, 
17th Reg., Michigan Vol. Inf., who mustered 
him in as "drummer boy," that being the only 
legal way of enrolling the 16-year-old vol- 
unteer. But from the first he shouldered the 
musket with the rest of Company D, bearing 
all the hardships of McClellan's Peninsular 
campaign with as much fortitude as many older 
men. 

At the battle of Antietam the 17th Michi- 
gan was in the forefront of battle, and his older 
comrades to this day delight to recall the fight- 
ing ardor of "Young VanKleeck," as they still 
call him. Late in the day, when the fortunes 
of battle were going against the Union Army, 
the little volunteer received a minie bullet in 
his left side, which he still carries, and from 
this wound he has suffered to this day. He lay 
for hours on the battle-field, among the dead 
and dying. He was finally carried to a field 
hospital, and later taken to the town made fa- 
mous by Whittier's immortal song "Barbara 
Frietchie," the quaint hamlet of Frederick, 
Maryland, where he was placed in a German 
Lutheran Church, which was being used as an 
emergency hospital for the thousands wounded 
in that campaign, and for eight long, dreary 
months, he lay under the belfry, too weak to be 
moved. This long siege has earned for him 
among Michigan's veterans the record for 
longest continuous church attendance! The 



German pastor was indefatigable in his care for 
the wounded, being with them often day and 
night, together with the army nurses. Many 
anecdotes are told of this venerable preacher. 
Comrade Hopkins of the 17th Michigan died 
from wounds in this church hospital, and his 
brother, now Maj. George Hopkins, of De- 
troit, and once private secretary to General 
x\lger, Secretary of War, wanted to escort the 
remains to their native heath in far-off Michi- 
gan. It was a critical period for the .\rmy of 
the Potomac, and furloughs w^ere out of the 
question. But the resourceful pastor concluded 
the soldier's uniform needed alterations, so he 
furnished Hopkins with civilian clothes, also 
passports for a friend to see the dead soldier 
safely home, and ere many days had passed, 
that uniform w-as mended, returned to its 
owner, and thereafter saw much active service. 
But VanKleeck was less fortunate. The 
wound would not heal, and on November 17, 
1863, he was discharged for disability. 

Refreshed by the cool breezes of Lake Erie 
he read law with Bakhvin & Rafter at Monroe, 
entered the University of Michigan in 1868, 
and graduated from the law department in 
June, 1870. Shortly after he located at Mid- 
land, with a "cash paid-up capital of $4" to 
begin life and practice for himself. Pluck car- 
ried the day. He served tw^o terms as city 
attorney and two terms as county prosecutor. 
In 1882 be was elected to the State Legis- 
ture, where he served for several years on the 
judiciary and University of Michigan com- 
mittees. 

In 1885 he crossed the county line to the 
east, and entered into a partnership with George 
W. Mann in Bay City. He was appointed com- 
missioner of immigration by Governor Alger in 
1885, and elected prosecuting attorney in 1886. 
He served four years on the Board of Educa- 
tion, two years as president, and contributed 



69i^ 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



much to the development of the present splen- 
did school system. In 1890 he was the Re- 
publican candidate for Congress in the loth 
Congressional District of Michigan, when that 
district was favorable to the opposition, T. A. 
E. Weadock, Democrat, winning out by a nar- 
row margin. 

Mr. VanKleeck is a past commander of 
U. S. Grant Post, No. 67, G. A. R. He was 
unanimously chosen department commander 
for Michigan, 1901-02, being presented with a 
beautiful, solid gold past commander's badge. 
It is inscribed: "Presented to Comrade James 
VanKleeck, Department of Michigan, G. A. 
R., as a token of their appreciation of his 
services as department commander for the term 
ending January 13, 1902." In his annual ad- 
dress the retiring commander covered vigor- 
ously all the various departments and features 
of Michigan's G. A. R., lauded the army nurses 
of the South as well as the North, and praised 
the loyal service of the volunteers then serving 
in the Philippines, who were being assailed at 
home and abroad as inhuman, insisting that 
men who are brave are also humane and tender- 
hearted. The address was widely circulated 
and heartily endorsed. 

In addition to being a member of U. S. 
Grant Post, No. 67, G. A. R., Mr. VanKleeck 
is a Scottish Rite Mason and a member of the 
Ancient Order of United Workmen and Sher- 
idan Camp, No. 5, National League of Vet- 
erans and Sons. 

In 1872 Mr. VanKleeck wooed and won 
Juliette C. Carpenter, daughter of Thomas J. 
Carpenter, one of Midland's most prominent 
pioneers. Three children have blessed the 
union : James C, aged 21, now in the Attorney 
General's ofifice at Lansing, assisting in the fa- 
mous State case against the railroads of Michi- 
gan, who are trying to evade State taxation; 
Edith A., graduate of the literary department 



of the University of Michigan ; and Delia, a 
student at Michigan's famous University. The 
family are members of the First ^ilethodist 
Episcopal Church, and reside on Fifth avenue. 
Few men in Michigan are more widely and 
favorably known than Mr. VanKleeck. 




DGAR B. FOSS. Among the repre- 
sentative, public-spirited business men 
of Bay City, no one stands higher in 
the esteem of his fellow-citizens than 
the gentleman whose career is here briefly 
traced. Edgar B. Foss was born in Williman- 
tic, Connecticut, in 1853. His parents, John 
and Sarah (Slade) Foss, were natives of New 
England, his father having been born in 
Rhode Island, of English parents, while his 
mother, the daughter of a Quaker minister, was 
born in L^xbridge, Massachusetts. There were 
10 children in the family, one of whom, Sam- 
uel S., served through the Rebellion as adju- 
tant of the Eighth Regiment, Connecticut Vol. 
Inf., receiving a wound at Fort Darling. 

Edgar B. Foss, the youngest of the family, 
was reared to young manhood in Rhode Island, 
attending the common schools of Woonsocket 
and later a business college at Providence, 
Rhode Island. At the age of 17 he came to 
Michigan and entered the employ of D. A. 
Ballou, of Kawkawlin, Bay County, a lumber 
manufacturer of that place. As he was unac- 
quainted with the work, he began at the bottom 
but soon worked his way up and in 1872 ac- 
cepted a very desirable position which was ten- 
dered him by Van Etten, Kaiser & Company as 
their representative, his territory being the en- 
tire State of Ohio. Six years later, with his 
brother Samuel, he formed the company of 
S. S. & E. B. Foss and purchased the lumber of 
his former employers. Van Etten, Kaiser & 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



699 



Company, continuing the business there until 
1879, when they disposed of it and moved to 
Bay City to take advantage of the better facil- 
ities for putting their stock on the market. Their 
first location was on the West Side, but they 
later moved to their present yards in Bay City, 
where they have every convenience for ship- 
ping. In 1883 Samuel S. Foss was thrown 
from a buggy and killed. His interest m the 
business was then purchased by our subject, 
who soon after took J. M. Leiter into partner- 
ship. In 1888 Mr. Leiter retired, since which 
time Mr. Foss has managed the large business 
alone. In addition to his lumber-yard, which 
is one of the largest and best situated in the 
county, Mr. Foss operates a large plant for the 
manufacture of dressed lumber, turning out the 
best grades ; the business requires a number of 
salesmen to keep it up to the standard at which 
he has placed it. He is a director of the Old 
Second National Bank, and treasurer and 
manager of the W'enona Coal & Mining 
Company. 

While Mr. Foss has never sought political 
preferment, he has always given the weight of 
his influence to all public movements which 
promised increased prosperity for Bay City. 
He served the city efficiently for four years as 
a member of the Board of Aldermen. In 1905 
Mr. Foss was given the honor of carrying the 
Michigan electoral vote to Washington. His 
name was suggested when, after a spirited con- 
test in tJie Electoral College, it became evident 
that none of the aspirants for the honor could 
win, and he was chosen on the 26th ballot. He 
enjoyed the privilege of admission to the floor 
of the Senate on January 15th, it being one of 
the electoral messenger's perquisites. He was 
also the recipient of many courtesies from the 
United States Senators from Michigan. He 
was presented to President Roosevelt in the 
White House. 



Mr. Foss was married in 1871 to Eliza- 
beth Fitzgerald, a native of Limerick, Ireland, 
by whom he has three children, — Walter I., 
Edgar H. and Edith H. Mrs. Foss is a mem- 
ber of the Protestant Episcopal Church and a 
lady whose kind, motherly heart and sympa- 
thetic manner have won her a host of warm 
friends among both old and young. Mr. Foss 
occupies a prominent place in both social and 
business circles. He has taken every degree in 
Free Masonry to the 33rd degree. He is a mem- 
of Joppa Lodge, No. 315, F. & A. M. ; Blanch- 
ard Chapter, No. 59, R. A. M. ; Bay City Com- 
mandery, No. 26, K. T. ; and Bay City Coun- 
cil, No. 53, R. & S. M., all Scottish Rite bodies 
in Bay City ; and Michigan Sovereign Consis- 
tory, S. P. R. S., and Moslem Temple, A. A. 
O. N. M. S., at Detroit. 




YRELLE RABY, one of the well- 
known citizens of Bay County, whose 
30 acres of well-improved land in 
section 29, Hampton township, he 
has owned and occupied since 1885. was born 
December 15, 1842, at Ottawa Lake, some 36 
miles north of Montreal, Canada. He is a son 
of Hyacinth and Joset (Charlette) Raby. 

The father of Mr. Raby was born at Quebec, 
of French parents. The mother was of Ger- 
man and French extraction. Hyacinth Raby, 
who was a farmer by occupation, was 65 years 
of age when he came to Bay County, Michigan. 
For years prior to his death, at the age of 87 
years and four months, he lived retired. The 
mother was a native of Montreal and spent the 
last few months of her life with our subject, 
who was one of her 1 1 children, dying at the 
age of 62 years. 

Cyrelle Raby was 19 years of age before he 
left his father's Canadian farm. In 1861 he 



"OO 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and a brother came to Bay County which has 
been his home ever since. For several years he 
worked at carpenter work and then bought a 
comfortable home on i8th street, Bay City, 
which he occupied for 23 years and still owns. 
He entered the Bradley mills, where for 17 
years he was superintendent and millwright, 
with 100 men in his employ, hax'ing complete 
charge. After 23 years in mill work, Mr. Raby 
decided to try farming, securing his present 
place when it was still wild land. This he 
cleared himself and placed under cultivation, 
operating it for some time but now having his 
son take charge of affairs. Its many improve- 
ments make this one of the most attractive and 
comfortable homes on the Center avenue road. 

On July 16. 1866, Mr. Raby was married 
to Mary Bauer, who was born June 20, 1842, 
at Quebec, Canada, and came to Bay City, with 
her brother, a few months prior to her mar- 
riage. Mr. and Mrs. Raby have four children, 
namely: Emma (Mrs. Gregory), of Bay City, 
who has two sons and one daughter : Cyrelle, 
who married Mary Spegel and operates the 
home farm; James, an officer in the United 
States Navy, who was married in 1896 to Jan- 
etta Callahan and has one daughter; and Jo- 
seph, of Bay City, who married Cora Conlon. 
Mr. Raby and family belong to St. John's 
Catholic Church at Essexville. 

Mr. Raby's son, Lieut. James Raby, has 
made an honorable record in the navy. He was 
born September 17, 1874, at Bay City, and was 
16 years old when he was admitted to the great 
United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. 
Maryland. On July i, 1897. he was commis- 
sioned ensign, and later was advanced to lieu- 
tenant and the latest advices received in No- 
vember, 1904, from his ship, the "Monadnock." 
then stationed at Shanghai, China, were to the 
effect that he was to be made navigator and 
have charge of the target practice as ordnance 



officer. He seems to have a brilliant future in 
store. His home is at San Francisco, Cal- 
ifornia. 




OHN L. WEBER, who owns one of 
the fine homes of Portsmouth town- 
ship, consisting of 63 acres of well- 
cultivated land in section i, where is 
located one of the modern residences of the lo- 
cality, 20 acres in section 36 and 40 more 
acres in section 7,1,, is a native of Bay County, 
and was born February 24, i860, in Hampton 
township. He is a son of Philip and Mary 
(Saxlinger) Weber. 

Philip Weber was born in Germany some 
80 years ago and now resides at Bay City. The 
mother of our subject was also born in Ger- 
many and has passed her 61 st birthday. They 
have a comfortable home on Park avenue. Bay 
City. They have six children, namely ; Mrs. 
Mary Rodel, of Bay City; John L. ; Mrs. Min- 
nie Gies, of Portsmouth township; Mrs. 
Maggie Boehringer, of Bay City ; George, who 
is farming the old homestead ; and Mrs. Bar- 
bara Weber, of Hampton township. 

John L. Weber was reared in Hampton 
township and attended school there but has 
lived on his present farm for the past 20 years. 
When he located on it, only 15 acres of the 
property had been cleared ; all the subsequent 
clearing was done by him. He has erected a 
fine home and substantial barns and shelters 
and has placed his land under a fine state of 
cultivation. He carries on general farming, 
paying most attention to grain and hay, and 
keeps 40 head of cattle. He is ranked with 
the successful and enterprising agriculturists of 
the county. 

In August, 1882, Mr. Weber was united in 
marriage with Rosa Schabel, who was born in 
Merritt township, Bay County, Michigan, Au- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



701 



gust 15, 1861, and is a daughter of Paul and 
Barbara Schabel, natives of Germany. Their 
family of four cliildren — Fred John, Minnie, 
WilHam Piiilip and Leo Ciiarles — are all at 
home yet and make a happy, united family. 

Mr. Weber has never taken any very active 
part in politics beyond voting — the duty of 
every good citizen — and he has always sup- 
ported at such times the candidates and meas- 
ures of the Republican party. 




r.L'RIG LLOYD DAVIES, secre- 
tary and treasurer of the North 
American Chemical Company, 
whose plant is located in Bay City. 
was born in Liverpool, England, October 3, 
1865, and is a son of William H. and Eliza- 
beth Lloyd (Griffith) Davies. 

Mr. Davies' father was torn in Liverpool, 
England, September 11, 1830, and still resides 
in his native city. The greater ])art of his life 
has been spent in business as an estate agent. 

Mr. Davies of this sketch was educated at 
the Liverpool College and the Liverpool Uni- 
versity and received his business training with 
the noted chemical firm of James Muspratt & 
Sons. In i8go that firm, together with the 
greater number of the large chemical operators, 
was absorbed in the United Alkali Company, 
Ltd., capitalized at $42,000,000. This is the 
parent company of the North American Chem- 
ical Company. 

The North American Chemical Company 
was incorporated April 21, 1898, with John 
Brock, of Liverpool, England, as president: 
and Meurig L. Davies, as secretary and treas- 
urer. The company purchased the McGraw 
mill property and erected mills suitable for the 
manufacture of its products, locating the plant 
on the Saginaw River south of 40th street. 



The main building is a one-story brick, 625 by 
225 feet in dimensions, and other smaller build- 
ings are utilized. The company has a salt- 
block and manufactures salt both by the grainer 
and \acuum pan processes. The main products 
are chlorate of potash and chlorate of soda, 
which go to supply the match, bleaching and 
fire-works industries of the country. The pro- 
duction of both coarse and fine salt from their 
2j wells, 1,000 feet in depth, is a very large part 
of their business, it being probably the largest 
concern of its kind in the world. 

This company has a river frontage of nearly 
one and a half miles, giving fine transportation 
in that direction, and they have the best of 
railroad facilities, both the Pere Marquette and 
the Michigan Central railroads running through 
the plant. The greater part of the salt is 
shipped by water and is entirely consumed 
the United States. A force of 160 men is used 
in connection with the chemical works. 

In order to provide fuel for these factories, 
the same capitalists acquired the Bay Coal 
Mining Company, which owns coal lands in 
Frankenlust township, some six miles away. 
The chemical works alone consume 4,700 tons 
of coal a month. The coal company does 1)oth 
a wholesale and retail business. In 1904 it 
hoisted 60,000 tons, but the company handles a 
large amount of coal over what its own mines 
produce. The plant of the chemical company 
at Bay City represents an investment of 
$1,250,000. Its location in the United States 
is a direct result of the McKinley tariff bill. 
The annual pay-roll exceeds $150,000. Mr. 
Davies came to take personal charge of this 
plant in 1899. In addition to his official rela- 
tions with the North .\merican Chemical Com- 
pany, Mr. Davies is also president of the Bay 
Coal Mining Company, vice-president of the 
Bay County Coal Operators' Exchange, and a 
director of the Michigan Salt Association. Mr. 



702 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Davies is a man of very strong individuality; 
his face expresses intellect, vigor and deter- 
mination. 

In 1893 ^^- Davies married Lillian Sim- 
ister, who is a daughter of Timothy Simister, 
of Runcorn, England. They have one daugh- 
ter, Marjorie Myering. Both Mr. and Mrs. 
Davies are members of the Protestant Episco- 
pal Church and Mr. Davies' love of music led 
him to become a member of the church choir. 

Fraternally Mr. Davies is a Mason, a mem- 
ber of Bay City Lodge, No. 129, F. & A. M., 
Blanchard Chapter, No. 59, R. A. M. ; Bay 
City Council. No. 53, R. & S. M. : and ail 
of the Scottish Rite bodies up to the 32d de- 
gree. He belongs to the Michigan Sovereign 
Consistory, S. P. R. S., and Moslem Temple, 
A. A. O. N. M. S., at Detroit. Socially he is 
a member of the Bay City Club, Bay City Boat 
Club, Married People's Club and Golf Club. 
Politically he has identified himself with the 
Republican party, seeing in its principles the 
foundations of wise government for the L'nited 
States. 

Although this great enterprise at Bay City 
is controlled by English wealth, it is managed 
strictly on American principles, from an Amer- 
ican standpoint. 



ENRY H. THOMAS, a prominent cit- 
izen of Bay City, has been extensively 
engaged in the manufacture of dyna- 
mite in Kawkawlin township for 
many years. He is a veteran of the Civil War, 
bearing an honorable record for service in the 
Union Army. Mr. Thomas was born at Staf- 
ford, New York, December 13, 1843. ^'""^^ '^ a 
son of Henry and Catherine (Collins) Thomas. 
Henry Thomas was born in Bideford, Dev- 
onshire, England, his parents having come from 



Wales. He came to America at the age of 21 
years and located at Stafford, New York. He 
first engaged in farming, and later established 
a factory for the manufacture of potash, con- 
tinuing in that business the remainder of his 
life. He married Catherine Collins, who came 
of an old pioneer family of Geneseo. New York. 
' The}' had six children, as follows : Emma, wife 
of Solomon Ford, of Buffalo, New York; 
George H., deceased; James P., of Titusville, 
Pennsylvania ; Henry H. ; Horatio, deceased ; 
and Daniel W., of Raton, New Mexico. Re- 
ligiously, the family were Methodists, the father 
being a devout Christian and a class leader in 
the church. 

Henry H. Thomas left home at the age of 
nine years to learn photography, and it was this 
work which gave him a taste for chemistry. He 
made daguerreotypes and later ambrotypes, 
commonly called tintypes. After the Civil 
War broke out, in 1862 he enlisted in Company 
G, 129th Reg. New York Vol. Inf., which after- 
ward was reorganized as the Eighth New York 
Heavy Artillery. He served in all the engage- 
ments of the regiment, and was seriously 
wounded before Petersburg, being sent to the 
general hospital at Buffalo, New York. In 
1864, he was made a sergeant and upon more 
than one occasion covered himself with glory, 
although unjustly deprived of the honors in the 
official records. The War Department refused 
to entertain his claims for recognition of his 
services, although accompanied by the recom- 
mendations of his comrades, as it was claimed 
no reference to the events, upon which his 
claims are based, had been made in the records 
of the ofifice. The colonel of his regiment, how- 
ever claims that a full statement of the facts 
were included in the history of the regiment. 
Mr. Thomas has in his possession the follow- 
ing statement, signed and sworn to by Lieu- 
tenant LeRny Williams, ist lieutenant of Com- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



703 



pany L, Eighth New York Heavy Artillery, 
relative to his bravery and valor on the battle- 
field, a tribute deserving of preservation in an 
imperishable form : 

The following statement of facts, relative to Sergt. 
Henry H. Thomas of Co. G, 8th N. Y. H. Art., during 
the Civil War, are such as came under my personal 
observation, (viz.) at the battle of Boynton Plank 
Road on Hatcher's Run, as we called it. On the 2Sth 
day of November, 1864, (I think it was), Sergeant 
Thomas displayed wonderful coolness. The enemy ad- 
vanced a column of infantry across the Run and de- 
ployed them as skirmishers in front of our battalion, 
which was at the time lying down in line of battle some 
forty rods distant across an open field. Sergeant 
Thomas discovered the move and at once ordered the 
men near him to open fire, setting the example himself 
by loading and firing his own piece repeatedly while 
urging the men to more active work. Our fire seemed 
to waver the advance of the enemy and he at once took 
in the situation and commanded the men to follow him 
and drive the enemy back across the Run, which was 
done, he being in the extreme advance. And again, at 
the battle of Five Forks (or as we knew the place. 
Crow House,) on the morning of April 2, 1865, the 
regiment was ordered to charge the enemy's works 
through a slashing of timber, which had been felled and 
burned over, and Sergeant Thomas again led the ad- 
vance of his company and scaled the breastworks into a 
fort which was afterwards named Fort Porter, ordered 
the men in the fort to throw down their arms and sur- 
render, and later marched 30 of the prisoners out of 
the sally-port at the rear of the fort and turned them 
over to an officer who praised him for his gallantry and 
said to him he "should receive a commission therefor," 
but taking the prisoners in charge reported them him- 
self to headquarters and was, I am told, breveted cap- 
tain for Sergeant Thomas' gallantry and the sergeant 
not mentioned. I believe this sergeant should even at 
this late date receive from the War Department some 
token or mark of recognition in the form of brevet 
rank or service medal, which could be handed down to 
his children, and proper inention of his personal service 
be made on the records at Washington. 

(Signed) Lieut. LeRov Willl^ms, 

1st Lieut. Co. L, Sth N. Y. H. Art. 

(Sworn to before Jasper W. Garlich, Not. Pub., 
Lansing, Michigan.) 

.\ similar statement, not cjuite so com])lete 
in detail, signed by John R. Coo]ier. captain of 



Company G, and assistant adjutant general, is 
in Mr. Thomas' possession. 

After the war Mr. Thomas returned to 
Stafford, New York, for a short stay, then 
went to Titusville. Pennsylvania, in the days 
of the oil boom of 1865. He worked first as 
an engineer, then became an owner of wells 
and continued as a producer there until 1869. 
He then began operations in the oil regions of 
West Virginia, where he was an active pro- 
ducer until 1872. in which year he came to 
Bay City, Michigan, where he has since l>een 
located. He first engaged here in the manu- 
facture of nitro-glycerine torpedoes for salt- 
wells, and from that branched into the manu- 
facture of all the various forms of high ex- 
plosives in which nitro-glycerine and dynamite 
are used. His output is from 800,000 to 
1.000,000 pounds of dynaiuite of various 
grades per year. His plant is located in Kaw- 
kawlin township. In December, 1904, his 
new factory was completely destroyed by fire, 
Init undaunted he rebuilt immediately and has 
his factory in running order and in full opera- 
tion. On April 3, 1905, his store house in 
which a quantity of high explosives was kept, 
was destroyed in a terrific explosion of its 
contents. Three men, employees of the works, 
but who had no business at the storehouse, 
were blown to atoms, while windows for miles 
around suffered severely. 

Mr. Thomas is a man of great energy and 
enterprise, honorable in his every act, and has 
attained success through his own industry, 
never profiting by another's misfortune. He 
possesses a strong personality and is highly 
esteemed by his many acquaintances. 

^Ir. Thomas was first united in marriage 
with Maria L. Smith, a daughter of Thaddeus 
Smith of Bay City, who died leaving three 
children : Elizabeth M. : James P., of Bay 
Citv: and Hemw Randall, who died at the 



yo4 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



age of four years. Mrs. Thomas was a mem- 
ber of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Our 
subject formed a second matrimonial alliance 
with A. Delia Stewart, a daughter of John A. 
Stewart of Southfield, Michigan, by whom he 
has a daughter, Ida Belle. They attend the 
Presbyterian Church. Fraternally, Mr. 
Thomas is a member of Joppa Lodge, No. 315, 

F. & A. M. ; and H. P. Merrill Post, No. 419, 

G. A. R. 




EORCiE C. TOUGH, who has resided 
for the past 10 years on his present 
farm of 40 acres, situated in section 
21, Merritt township, is one of the 
prominent citizens of the locality. He was 
born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, November 
13, 1843, ^^^ is ^ son of Alexander and Jane 
(Copeland) Tough. 

The old family farm on which our subject 
was born contained 100 acres and at the period 
of his birth had been in the possession of the 
Tough family for a number of generations. 
Both our subject's parents spent their lives 
there, the mother of George C. being Alex- 
ander Tough's second wife. By this marriage 
five daughters and three sons were born. Two 
daughters were born to the first marriage. 

George C. Tough grew up on his father's 
farm and attended the schools in his native 
locality until he was 16 years of age, when he 
learned the trade of pattern-maker. He was 
too ambitious, however, to feel satisfied with 
his prospects in Scotland, and in 1871 he came 
to America and was employed for a time in the 
city of Chicago. Competition was so great 
there that he decided to seek another location 
and his travels brought him to Bay City in 
1874. He was always handy with tools and, 
in addition to working at his trade, was occu- 
pied during a part of his residence in Bay City 



at work in the carpenter line. After purchasing 
his present farm, 25 years ago, he set to work 
to clear it. The tract was heavily timbered at 
the time Mr. Tough bought it. Prior to mov- 
ing on it in 1895, he had cleared a consider- 
able portion of it ; this work has now been 
completed and the whole farm has been placed 
under a fine state of cultivation. He carries 
on general farming and stock-raising, in which 
he meets with very satisfactory results. The 
comfortable home and barns and necessary 
farm buildings are of a substantial character 
and add greatly to the value of the property. 

Mr. Tough has always been a man of pro- 
gressive ideas and when he located on the farm 
he opened a general store which he conducted 
for eight years. For 1 5 years he was agent for 
the Mutual Fire Insurance Company, an or- 
ganization he still represents. During Presi- 
dent Cleveland's last administration he was ap- 
pointed postmaster at Munger and held over 
through the administration of President Mc- 
Kinley, although he is a very stanch Demo- 
crat. He has always taken a very active part 
in political matters and has served his town- 
ship in many public offices. For several years 
he was a justice of the peace, for two years was 
highway commissioner and has filled school 
offices for a long time. 

In 1876, at Chatham, Canada, Mr. Tough 
was married to Ellen Graham, who was born 
December 13, 1854, in Oxford District, On- 
tario, and is a daughter of John and Jane 
(McAlpin) Graham, natives of Scotland. Mrs. 
Tough is a member of the Presbyterian 
Church, to which Mr. Tough liberally contrib- 
utes. He assisted in the erection of the Pres- 
byterian Church in his neighborhood, drawing 
the plans and helping in the construction. He 
has never united with the church, but he was 
the first trustee of this organization. 

When Mr. Tough came to Michigan he 




CAPT. GEORGE TURNER 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



707 



was a poor man, a business venture having 
failed in Cliicago just prior to tliis. Thus he 
was obliged to begin at the bottom of the lad- 
der. Patience, i)erseverance and industry all 
contributed to his success in a material way, 
while his sterling traits of character soon won 
him the respect and esteem of his fellow- 
citizens. 



APT. GEORGE TURNER, whose 
portrait accompanies this sketch, has 
been city engineer of Bay City for 
27, years and in that capacity has ren- 
dered invaluable services to the public as is 
evidenced by the public works erected under his 
supervision, which are unexcelled in the State 
of Michigan. Captain Turner was born in 
Clinton County, Michigan, January 29, 1835, 
and is a son of Joseph and Emeline (Knox) 
Turner, both natives of England, the former 
of Nottinghamshire and the latter of Birming- 
ham. 

Upon coming to the United States, our 
subject's parents first located in New York 
State. They came to Alichigan in the early 
"thirties," and Joseph Turner operated a grist- 
mill at Clinton for some years and later one 
at Dearborn, where he remained until 1848. 
In that year he moved to Detroit, where he 
was identified at different times with the dry 
goods and grocery lines, in addition to operat- 
ing grist-mills at Rochester and Stony Creek, 
Michigan. After two years he closed out the 
mercantile business and took up his residence at 
Stony Creek, where he continued in the milling 
business until his death at the age of 52 years. 
He was a Democrat in politics. He was a 
member of the Royal Arch Chapter, the 
highest IMasonic body in the State at that 
time, was past master of Detroit Lodge, F. & 
A. M., and at the time of his death was grand 

38 



treasurer of the Grand Lodge, F. & A. M., of 
Michigan. He was united in marriage with 
Emeline Knox, whom he met in New York 
State, and they had six children who grew to 
maturity, namely: George: Charles K., of Sag- 
inaw, Michigan; William, of South Bend, In- 
diana; Edwin, deceased, who resided in Chi- 
cago : Albert, a member of Company B, loth 
Reg.. ]\Iichigan Vol. Inf., during the Civil 
War, who died of wounds received at the siege 
of Corinth ; and Joseph, who is a resident of 
Bay City. Religiously, the family are Episco- 
palians. 

George Turner received his educational 
training principally in the public schools of 
Detroit. While still in school he became a 
cadet in the surveyor-general's department, 
United States Survey, under General Lyons, 
working mostly in Michigan. He thus gained 
a thorough knowledge of surveying. He con- 
tinued with that department until the outbreak 
of the Civil War, although during the last 
three years of that time he was on leave of 
absence and served as county sur\-eyor of Mid- 
land County and as register of deeds. He was 
called into the service in 1861 as 2nd lieutenant 
of Company B, loth Reg., Michigan Vol. Inf., 
and subsequently was advanced to a ist lieu- 
tenancy in that company. He became captain 
of Company A, of the same regiment, and later 
captain of engineers, ist U. S. Veteran Volun- 
teer engineers, which regiment was authorized 
by a direct act of Congress and was called 
"General Thomas' Regiment." He partici- 
pated in the battles of Farmington, Booneville, 
luka. sige of Corinth, skirmishes about Nash- 
ville in 1862, battle of Stone River, advance on 
Chattanooga, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, 
advance on Atlanta and the battle of Nashville. 
Immediately after the battle of Chickamauga, 
he joined the engineering corps. At Stone 
River, on different days he was twice wounded. 



7o8 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



once in the hand and once in the leg. He was 
mustered out of ser\-ice in 1865. and for a 
period of 16 years remained in the South, en- 
gaged in contracting in Tennessee, Alabama, 
Georgia and Arkansas. 

In tlie fall of 1881, Captain Turner re- 
turned to Michigan, locating at Bay City and 
the following spring became city engineer, a 
position he has filled creditably up to the pres- 
ent. Nearly all of the sewerage system was 
put in and all the present paving laid under his 
direct supervision. The City Hall, a magnifi- 
cent granite structure costing $250,000 and one 
of the finest municipal buildings in the State, 
was erected under his supervision, as were the 
Belinda street bridge and the 23rd street bridge 
across the West Channel, both built in 1902. 
Captaui Turner was one of the promoters and 
since its inception has been a director in the 
Bay City Belt Line Railroad, a corporation 
whose lines are leased by the Pere Marquette 
Railroad Company. 

Captain Turner was united in marriage 
with Julia Smith, a native of Michigan. They 
had one daughter, Edith, who is the wife of 
Richard Richardson, of Midland, Michigan. 
Captain Turner was again married in 1865 at 
Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Sophia P. Thomp- 
son, a native of Georgia, and they have one 
son, now grown to maturity, — G. Edwin, who 
is county surveyor and resides in Bay City. 

Captain Turner is a member of U. S. Grant 
Post, No. 67, G. A. R., of which he is past 
commander. He is also a member of the Mili- 
tary Order of the Loyal Legion of the United 
States and the LInion Veteran Legion. He is 
a member of Bay City Lodge, No. 23, Knights 
of Pythias ; is colonel of the Third Regiment, 
Uniform Rank, Knights of Pythias; and a 
member of Lodge No. 88, B. P. O. E. In poli- 
tics he has always been a stanch Republican 
since the organization of the party. 



G. Edwin Turner, son of Capt. George 
Turner, attended the schools of Bay City and 
immediately after graduation entered his 
father's office, in which he gained a practical 
and technical knowledge of surveying. In 1898 
he was elected county surveyor and has held 
that office ever since. He was joined in mar- 
riage with Kathleen Atkinson, a daughter of 
Robert Atkinson, of Bay City. Fraternally, 
he is a member of Portsmouth Lodge, No. 
190, F. & A. M. ; Blanchard Chapter, Nc. 59, 
R. A. M. ; and Bay City Council, No. 53, R. 
& S. M. He is a Republican in politics, and 
both he and his wife are members of Trinity 
Protestant Episcopal Church. 




OMER E. BUCK, born at Bath, Mich- 
igan, October 4, 1859, is to-day a 
living example of the possibilities 
before the enterprising and aggres- 
sive 3'outh of our great country. Attracted by 
the booming lumber town, the Buck family 
moved here in 1871, but all their liright pros- 
pects were soon blasted by the death of the 
father. A mother and sister alone remained 
to mourn with Homer. With the decision of 
character that has since contributed so much 
to his success in life, the little lad at once deter- 
mined to provide for the lo\'ed ones at home. 
He became a newsboy, later circulation man- 
ager for the Detroit Ncn-s, earning $30 to $35 
per month, and worked evenings, while attend- 
ing school regularly. 

\\'hen 16 years old Mr. Buck entered the 
employ of L. F. Miller & Company, where in 
five years he thoroughly mastered the whole- 
sale grocery trade, and when scarcely of age 
went into business for himself. With Joseph 
Leighton he conducted for 14 years a most 
prosperous and successful commission store, 
which the latter is still maintaining. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



709 



Mr. Buck, after selling out, entered a new- 
field by opening offices in the Shearer Block, 
where he has since em joyed a constantly in- 
creasing business, as merchandise broker, im- 
porter's and manufacturer's agent, and car-lot 
shipper. This business calls him frequently 
(.)ut of the city, ijut that has ne\er appeared to 
interfere with the manifold public enterprises 
and public duties with which he has in late 
years become associated. He is at present 
president of the E. P. Roe Company, of Bad 
.Axe, Michigan; is a director in the Argentuil 
Gold Mining Company, with ])roperties located 
fin Jackfish Bay, Canada, and stockholder in 
a number of thriving local business institu- 
tutions. He was one of the organizers 
and is a director of Bay City's beautiful city 
of the dead. — Elm Lawn Ceinetery. The first 
sugar beet seed brought into Bay County was 
secured by Mr. Buck from Germany for Hon. 
Nathan B. Bradley. C. B. Chatfield. and their 
colaborers. 

Despite the constantly growing demands of 
his varied business interests, his prodigious 
energy, earnest devotion to the welfare of his 
home city and its higher institutions and keen 
interest in every public enterprise, have for 
many years carried him into every movement 
for the development and advancement of Bay 
County. He was instrumental in bringing 
here the first chicory factory, introduced to the 
markets of the country some of the first beet 
sugar manufactured in Bay City, contributed 
to the development of the coal mining indus- 
try locally, and through his years of devoted 
work on the executive committee of the Board 
of Trade has been actively identified with every 
new enterprise secured through that organiza- 
tion. 

For Years Mr. Buck has been an ardent ad- 
vocate of a new railway line through the 
"Thumb" of Michigan, thus opening for Bay 



City's trade the rich farming country Iving to 
the east. On May i. 1905. with Hon. Nathan 
B. Bradley, Hon. George .\. Prescott, of 
Tawas (Secretary of State, 1905-06), W. C. 
Pennoyer, Edgar B. Foss and Hon. Chester L. 
Collins, he has succeeded in getting a good 
franchise for entering Port Huron with their 
proposed new road, — the Bay City & Port 
Huron Railroad. The line has been surveyed, 
has excellent terminals, good freight prospects 
in the products of farm and coal mine, touches 
a thickly settled urban district and will fill a 
long felt want for this part of Michigan. 

Mr. Buck labored for years to bring about 
the consolidation of the Bay Cities, and when 
in 1905 the union seemed hopelessly lost he it 
was, who with Hon. Spencer O. Fisher, \\\ D. 
Young, and others, carried the vital matter be- 
fore Governor Fred M. Warner and won out. 
Already some of the strongest opponents to 
this union of the sister cities are acknowledg- 
ing the benefits following consolidation, and 
the years to come will surely place the seal of 
unqualified approval upon the union, brought 
about in the last analysis by a handful of pub- 
lic-spirited business men. 

Mr. Buck has always found time from his 
business affairs for the plain duties of good 
citizenship. An ardent Republican, he cast his 
first vote for James G. Blaine in 1884. and his 
party service has since been continuous. For 
15 years he served on his ward committee, for 
six years he was treasurer of the Repul>lican 
County Committee, being its chairman in 
1900-02, proving there as ever an aggressive, 
energetic organizer. He has contributed much 
to the success of his party and its standard- 
bearers in Bay Coimty during more than 20 
years of active party service. He has never 
aspired to any public office, although his many 
friends would have been delighted to see him 
the first mavor of Greater Bav Citv. In the 



7IO 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



State Convention at Grand Rapids in June, 
1904, he was honored by being nominated as 
one of Michigan's electors at large, being 
elected on the Republican ticket in November, 
1904, by the sweeping endorsement accorded 
President Theodore Roosevelt by the electors 
of the State, who organized the party under 
the oaks at Jackson half a century ago. Mr. 
Buck represented Bay County at that semi- 
centennial celebration in July, 1904. He has 
served five years on the Board of Water 
Works ; five years on the Board of Fire Com- 
missioners, two years of which he was presi- 
dent, and at present represents the Fifth 
Ward on the Board of Education, a member 
of some of its most important committees. He 
is an active member and deacon of the First 
Presbyterian Church, taking an active part in 
the building of the present magnificent house 
of worship, as well as in the recent eflfort, 
which resulted in wiping out the last indebted- 
ness on this church. He is a Scottish Rite 
Mason, being a member of Bay City Lodge, 
No. 129, F. & A. M.; Blanchard Chapter. No. 
59, R. A. M. ; and Bay City Council, No. 53, 
R. & S. M.. all of Bay City; and Moslem 
Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of Detroit. He is 
also an honorary member of the Peninsular 
Military Company, a member of the ^Modern 
Archers of America and of the Knights of the 
Loyal Guard. 

Mr. Buck was married on April 23, 1884, 
to Alargaret Lewis, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. 
D. M. Lewis, two of Bay County's oldest and 
most esteemed pioneers. Seven children have 
blessed their home : Homer Clifford ; I\Iary A. ; 
David Justice; Alma Blanche; Harold Lewis; 
Edna Marguerite and Helen Esther. Mrs. 
Buck is a true type of American womanhood, 
a loving, dutiful wife and mother, charitable 
to a degree, and beloved and respected lay the 
community. 



The Buck family on the paternal side trace 
their ancestry back to 640 in Holland, the head 
of this branch going to England in 1500, a 
later sprig to Boston in 1647, and to New 
Amsterdam shortly after. The family is very 
prolific, members being now found all over 
the country, being especially noted for the 
number of civil engineers and surveyors it has 
has produced. 



I 



AULUS GREUL, who owns a fine 
farm of So acres in section 24, Mon- 
itor township, is one of the highly 
esteemed citizens of this locality and 
one of its well-informed men. Mr. Greul was 
born in Bavaria, Germany, August 7, 1836, 
and is a son of George and Margaret (Winter) 
Greul. The parents of "Sir. Greul spent their 
li\-es in Germany, Paulus and Adam being the 
only ones of the family of seven children to 
come to America. 

Our subject was only 16 years of age when 
he left Germany and came to America with 
his uncle, John Winter. The travelers came 
right through to Saginaw City, where the 
youth found work at the Webster House for 
two years. He then came to Lower Saginaw, 
as Bay City was originally called, and was em- 
ployed for seven and a half years teaming for 
Charles Fitzhugh. About this time he was 
married and embarked in hotel-keeping, hav- 
ing learned much about the business at the 
Webster House. With the asistance of his 
good wife he made money in this business and 
for 15 years conducted the Detroit House in 
Bay City. Li the meantime he had bought his 
present 80-acre farm and had it cleared and put 
under cultivation, and when his hotel burned 
in 1878 he moved upon the farm, where he has 
been comfortablv settled ever since. He has 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



711 



here e\crything a reasonable man could desire, 
— a fine home, two substantial barns and good 
out-buildings, a productive orchard and fields 
full of cattle and stock. 

Mr. Greul was united in marriage with 
Margaret Meckler, who was born in Bavaria, 
Germany, October 31, 1841, and is a daughter 
of George and Christiana (Beyer) Meckler. 
Three children have been born to them : Eus- 
tace, who died in infancy ; ^largaret. who died 
aged six years and eight months; and Mary, 
who married Henry Gies. Mr. and Mrs. Gies 
live with our subject and wife; their only son, 
Oscar Gies, died when aged almost a year. 

!Mr. Greul has never taken any active part 
in politics, preferring to vote more for the man 
than the party and satisfied if an honest citi- 
zen is elected who will execute the laws with- 
out any party bias. He has been one of the 
board of trustees of the German Lutheran 
Church at West Bay City for the past 12 years 
and is a man who is respected by all who know 
him. His industry and good management 
ha\'e brought him large returns and he is one 
of Monitor township's substantial men. 







M 


1 



fl.LIAM W. SIMPSON, one of the 
early settlers of Portsmouth town- 
ship, owning a fine farm in section 
5, was born March 23. 1847. at 
Glasgow, Scotland, and is a son of William C. 
and Janet (W^ingfield) Simpson. 

William C. Simpson was born October 27, 
1 816, at Glasgow. Scotland, and came to the 
United States with his family in 1850. He 
came five years later to Bay County, where he 
died November 8, 1879. He was an experi- 
enced machinist and set up the first millstone in 
Bay County and ground the first corn at Mc- 
Ewan's mill. He was a fine man, one who de- 



served, as he received, the respect of all who 
knew him. He was a justice of the peace dur- 
ing two terms, was overseer of the highways 
for a number of terms and was one of the first 
officers of School District No. 5, Portsmouth 
township. He identified himself with the Re- 
publican party and supported its principles. 
The mother of our subject was born at 
Straven, Scotland. July 11, 1S21, and died in 
Bay County on March 27. 1902. Nine chil- 
dren were born to William C. Simpson and 
wife. 

A tourist making his leisurely way over 
Portsmouth township, at the present day, 
would very probably select as the finest Irmd 
in view what was, when our subject came with 
his parents to Bay County, land all covered 
with water. The tourist would be right, for 
these former swamp lands, like the valley of 
the Nile, are undoubtedl)" the most fertile in 
this locality, but only those who have been en- 
gaged in the draining, clearing and cultivating 
of them, really know their value. 

I\Ir. Simpson was three \-ears old when his 
parents reached New York and cannot recall 
the long overland trip to Detroit and thence to 
Carmeltown, Canada, where the family lived 
three years. In 1855 the father led the wav to 
Bay County, the family following in Septem- 
ber, 1856. The father was engaged in lum- 
bering at that time and they lived in Bay City 
until February. 1862. His rapidly increasing 
family made the father consider the advisabil- 
ity of securing land while plenty was in the 
market, and he took up 120 acres of swamp 
land in Portsmouth township, securing it under 
the swamp land act. We may imagine the 
little family supplying their needs from Bay 
City, walking a "blazed" trail, the only high- 
way liy which they were able to reach Bay City 
for seven years after they settled here. Enough 
lumber was taken around by boat and then 



71- 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



carried across the prairie, witii which to build 
a house i6 by 26 feet in ground dimensions 
and eight feet high. Tiiere were no dwehing 
houses between the family home and Bay City 
and this fact alone presents a most convincing 
picture of the lonely life and hardships which 
this worthy family lived through in those pio- 
neer days. This was by no means all. When 
the spring rains came, the water in the un- 
drained territory rose waist high, occasioning 
untold hardships, many thrilling adventures 
and a number of serious accidents. 

Mr. Simpson and his father cut the hay 
growing wild on the prairies during the sum- 
mers and in the winters the sale of this brought 
in an income. They hauled it over the ice in 
hand sleighs. They also hauled the hay for 
many of their neighbors who came later, and 
during a prosperous season hauled 15 tons in 
this way. In 1870, after years of hard and un- 
remitting toil, almost everything was swept 
away by a forest fire. In addition to their 
buildings, the family lost t,;}, tons of hay, all 
their machinery and a great quantity of rails 
and cord wood. Following came sickness, the 
inevitable chills and fever associated with a 
wet country, and the result is that Mr. Simpson, 
in spite of his life of unvarying industry, has 
but a part of the original farm. This, however, 
is in a fine state of cultivation and, as noted, is 
of great fertility. He has worked in sawmills, 
and in lumbering camps and has cut the lumber 
off a large territory in Bay County. 

In October, 1890, Mr. Simpson was mar- 
ried to .Mice C. Collin, who was born at Bay 
City, July 20, 1868, and is a daughter of Will- 
iam and Eliza (Burbridge) Collin, who were 
natives of England. They came to America 
on January i, 1850 and to Bay City in 1862. 
Mr. and Airs. Simpson have adopted three 
children from the Coldwater Home, giving 



them parental love and care: Mary, Roland 
and Ethel. 

Mr. Simpson's political sympathies have 
always been with the Republican and Prohibi- 
tion parties. He has taken an active part in 
the county's affairs, served for six years as 
overseer of highways and at present is justice 
of the peace, making an admirable ofiicial. 
Both he and his estimable wife belong to the 
Presbyterian Church. 




OHN HEARIT, deceased, who was a 
prosperous and substantial farmer of 
Kawkawlin township, with farm in 
section 19, was born at St. Clair, 
Michigan, and is a son of George and Bar- 
bara (Pribster) Hearit. George Hearit died 
w'hen 32 years old, and his widow is now living 
at the age of 85 years. 

In 1883, the subject of this sketch bought 
the farm of 80 acres that he left to his widow 
and children. Previous to this he owned an- 
other farm in Kawkawlin township, where he 
lived six years. He had been married just 20 
years at the time of his death, which occurred 
February 9, 1898, in his 43d year. He was an 
upright and worthy man, and was much re- 
spected. In politics, he was a Republican. He 
was a member of the Catholic Church. 

i\Ir. Hearit married Annie Cook, a daugh- 
ter of William and Elizabeth (Harris) Cook, 
and eight children resulted from their union, 
namely : Frank, Elizabeth, George, William 
Bertha, Mamie, Arthur and Charles. Frank 
was born in 1880. He married Annie West- 
ern, and they reared two children, — Elva and 
Ethel. George was born March 19, 1887. 
William was born November 19, 1888. Eliza- 
beth, deceased, was the wife of William ^^^est- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



713 



ern. Bertha. Mamie, Arthur and Cliarles are 
aged, respectively, 14, 12, 10 and seven years. 
Mrs. Hearit was married August i, 1904, 
to Charles Baker, who was born in Canada, 
and lived for a time at Au Sable, Michigan. 




EORGE RUEGER, Sr., who resides 
on his 40-acre farm in section 16, 
Frankenlust township, owns four 
80-acre farms in the township, and 
is one of the representative citizens. He was 
born June 2, 1835, at Gunzenhausen, Bavaria. 
Germany, and is a son of Michael and Anna 
Barbara (Schu) Reuger. 

Mr. Rueger's parents were farming people 
in Germany and passed their whole lives there. 
Of their six children, our subject is the only 
one that came to America. The others were : 
Andrew, Leonard, Michael, Barbara and 
Mary. 

Our subject came to America in 1852, and 
after reaching Bay City secured employment 
in the sawmills, where he worked some three 
years. Then he bought 40 acres of land in 
section 16, Frankenlust township, for which he 
paid $160, as it was school reservation land, it 
was entirely unimproved, but he built a small 
home in which he lived alone for about five 
years, being mostly engaged during this time 
in clearing and hauling timber. There were 
no roads then where now fine stone highways 
invite transportation, and Mr. Rueger, like his 
neighbors, had to give many days' work to get 
roads of any kind over which they could drive 
their heavy wagons. Mr. Rueger has bought 
other farms, all in Frankenlust township, and 
is considered one of the substantial men. 

In 1859 Mr. Rueger married Anna Bar- 
bara Eichinger, who was born on June 2, 1834, 
near the same town in Germanv as was our 



subject. She accompanied her parents to 
America on the same ship in which Mr. Rueger 
crossed, and they came directly to Bay City. 
She was a daughter of Andrew and .'\nna Bar- 
bara Eichinger, and died February 22, 1900. 
She was the mother of these children : George, 
who is operating a farm in section 8, Franken- 
lust township; Michael, who married Mar- 
garet Lutz, a daughter of .\dam and Margaret 
Lutz, and operates the home farm ; .Andrew, 
whose farm is in section 18, Frankenlust town- 
ship; Margaret, wife of George Seidel, of Sag- 
inaw County; and John, who is farming in sec- 
tion 8, Frankenlust township. 

Mr. Reuger has been a Democrat ever since 
he has taken an interest in public affairs. He 
is a leading member of St. John's German 
Lutheran Church at Amelith and has been one 
of the most liberal contributors to the building 
of a new church structure. He has been one of 
the trustees of the church for si.x years. 



ARVEY GILBERT, M. D., a prom- 
inent physician and surgeon at Bay 
City. Michigan, who, on account of 
his remarkable success in the treat- 
ment of that dire disease, smallpox, is gener- 
ally considered smallpox specialist, is a native 
of the Dominion of Canada. He was born at 
Simcoe, Ontario, January 28, 1846, and is a 
son of John Wyckoff and Christine (Smith) 
Gilbert. 

Col. Isaac Gilbert, the grandfather of Dr. 
Gilbert, was one of the United Empire Loyal- 
ists. He was born in Connecticut, but during 
the Revolutionary War adhered to the cause of 
the English Crown and removed to New 
Brunswick, and subsec|uently to Western 
Canada, and died in 1848 at Simcoe. Ontario. 
He acquired his title as a member of the 



714 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Canadian militia. His wife was Margaret 
Wyckoff. of Long Island. Her ancestors were 
born at Flatbush in an old mansion which was 
built there 22 years after the Pilgrims landed 
on Plymouth Rock. Its ruins still are in ex- 
istence. The family originated in Devonshire, 
England, and Great-grandfather Gilbert, a 
lieutenant on a man-of-war, was the original 
settler in New Brunswick, under the proclam- 
ation from the English Crown in favor of loyal 
Tories. 

John WyckofT Gilbert, father of Dr. Gil- 
bert, was born on his father's farm at Simcoe 
in 181 3. He became a man of influence, served 
for a long period as a justice of the peace, and 
died full of years and honors. He married 
Christine Smith, who was a daughter of An- 
drew Smith, of Paterson, New Jersey, and 
they had nine children, six of whom reached 
maturity, namely : Samantha, wife of William 
V. Culver, of Simcoe, Ontario; Peter, of 
Sterling, Michigan, formerly a member of the 
State Senate; Harvey, of this sketch; Isaac, 
an attorney at Bay City ; Albert, operating the 
homestead farm ; and Frank O., who is a den- 
tal surgeon at Bay City. In religious connec- 
tion the parents of this family were Metho- 
dists, the mother ha\-ing lieen a devoted mem- 
ber of this church for 56 years. The father 
had been reared in the Protestant Episcopal 
Church, but attended religious services with 
his wife. They were in every way worthy, 
estimable people and their descendants have 
reason to recall them with both pride and 
affection. 

Dr. Gilbert obtained his education in the 
common schools and the High School at Sim- 
coe, and then entered upon the study of med- 
icine with Drs. York and McDonald, in that 
city, subsequently graduating from a medical 
college in the citv of New York, and also 



from the New York Ophthalmic Hospital. In 
1874 he came to Bay City where he practiced 
for six years as an eye, ear, nose and throat 
specialist. Since 1880 he has been a general 
practitioner and since 1900, he has been en- 
gaged in caring for contagious diseases. 

Dr. Gilbert was one of the first health of- 
ficers appointed by the Bay City Board of 
Health as now constituted. He holds an ap- 
pointment under the Board of Supervisors as 
smallpox specialist, his remarkable success in 
handling this disease having brought him into 
prominence in this line. He has reversed the 
old methods of treatment. He favors light, 
air and water for the afflicted and depends 
mainly upon the skilled use of antiseptics. Very 
few of his patients show any marking after 
recovery. To have conquered, through zeal, 
watchfulness and personal courage, a dreaded 
scourge which has afflicted the human race, 
certainly since A. D. 572. one which has at- 
tacked the king on his throne as surely as the 
child of the slums, is something which justifies 
a feeling of pride, and clearly testifies to the 
supremacyy of skill and talent in the medical 
profession. Dr. Gilbert has handled over 
1,600 cases in the present epidemic without 
anv fatal cases. 

Dr. Gilbert married a daughter of a well- 
known citizen of Simcoe, Ida A. Beemer, and 
they had three children : Carlton, who died at 
the age of nine years ; Leta, a student at Alma 
College, a member of the class of 1905 ; and 
John Van Campen, who will graduate from 
the Bay City High School in the class of 1905. 

Dr. Gilbert is a member of the city and 
county medical societies and of the American 
Medical Association. He is fraternally asso- 
ciated with Bay City Lodge, No. 129, F. & 
A. M. and Blanchard Chapter, No. 59, R. A. 
M. In politics he is a Democrat. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



715 




JOHN ENDLIXE. one of the represen- 
tative citizens and large farmers of 
Beaver township, has a beautiful 
home located in section 22 and owns 
200 acres which extend through sections 22, 
23 and 15. Mr. Endline was born in Ger- 
many, in 1849, 3nd is a son of Paulus Endline. 

The father of Mr. Endline was a native of 
Germany. His death took place when his son 
John was 13 years old, at the comparatively 
early age of 41 years. Three years later, the 
mother remarried, and she died aged 62 years. 

Our subject reached Detroit, Michigan, 
with his uncle on June 6, 1869, and during the 
following year he worked for the latter. In 
1870 he came to Bay City, where he was em- 
ployed in the Brooks & Adams mill until July, 
and worked for Miller Brothers in South Bay 
City until tlie fall of the year, when he was 
taken down with malaria and was obliged to 
remain idle, much against his wishes, all the 
succeeding winter. In the spring of 1871 he 
was engaged by Mr. Staudacher, of Salzburg, 
who owned a salt-block, store and farm, and 
he remained with him until January, 1872, 
when he went to teaming for Mr. Hecht. Since 
then he has devoted his attention to farming. 

In No\-ember, 1872, Mr. Endline married 
Dorothy Betcolt, who was born in Germany 
and was a daughter of Simon Betcolt. She 
died in 1886. The six children of this mar- 
riage were: Annie; Barbara, wife of Gus 
Nitzchke : Andrew ; Michael : John and Fred- 
erick. In 1888 Mr. Endline married, as his 
second wife, Kate Conrad, who was born in 
Germany and is a daughter of Vitus and Mar- 
garet (Coiner) Conrad. They have six chil- 
dren : Dora, bom January 22, 1890; Johanna, 
born February 11, 1891 : Mary, born July 16, 
1893; George, born August 4, 1895: Trongott 
and Maggie (twins), born December 6, 1900; 
and Katie, born May 7, 1903. 



I Mr. Endline is a stanch Democrat and has 
been one of the important men of the township 
for a number of years. In 1877 and 1878 he 
was township treasurer; in 1880. 1881 and 
1882, and from 1884 to 1893 he was super- 
visor, and then was reelected treasurer for two 
years more. He was elected township clerk in 
1901 and still holds the office, and has been 
a school director or assessor for the past 25 
years. These frequent elections to responsible 
positions testify plainly as to the confidence and 
esteem in which he is held by his fellow-citi- 
zens. He belongs to the German Lutheran 
Church. 




nXA G. LEWIS, one of the active 
and enterprising business men of 
Bay City, and manager of the Lewis 
Manufacturing Company, one of the 
city's most flourishing industries, was born at 
Bay City, and is a son of Hon. George and 
Frances (Merrill) Lewis. 

The Lewis family is of Welsh extraction, 
but for many generations it has been estab- 
lished in the State of New York. Its founders 
in America settled in Orange County, in the 
\icinity of West Point. There the paternal 
great-grandfather, John Lewis, died at the age 
of 86 years. The grandfather, James Lewis, 
was of less sturdy constitution, his death oc- 
curring at the age of 56 years. James Lewis 
married Elizabeth Thorn, who was a daughter 
of Da\-id Thorn, and a granddaughter of Jesse 
Thorn, an old and prominent English Quaker. 
Mrs. Elizabeth (Thorn) Lewis died at the age 
of 36 years, leaving six children, all of whom 
have long since passed away, the death of the 
youngest, George Lewis, the father of our 
subject, on January 29, 1897. closing that 
page of the family record. 

The late George Lewis was one of the early 



n6 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



and able business men of Bay City, one whose 
energy and enterprise left its mark in the firm 
founding of business concerns that still con- 
tinue. He was born November 8, 1827, in 
Orange County, New York, and remained at 
home until the age of 21 years, securing as fair 
an education as was possible in the poineer log 
school house of his native locality. He was 
very likely better acquainted with farming and 
lumbering than with books. Prior to 1849 
he came to Michigan which was then consid- 
ered as the far, far West, and pleased with the 
outlook in the Saginaw Valley he located at 
Zilwaukee and embarked in a lumber business. 
At this time the most pressing demand in this 
locality seemed to be for fish barrels, and these 
Mr. Lewis resolved to make, despite the fact 
that he had no capital with which to buy ma- 
chinery. He had, however, plenty of lumber, 
two strong and capable hands and inherited 
mechanical genius and until his removal, about 
1857, to Bay City, he made fish barrels by hand, 
successfully competing with those who used the 
clumsy machinery of that day. Prior to leav- 
ing Zilwaukee he had served in a number of the 
local offices and was looked upon as one of the 
representative men of that place. 

After coming to Bay City, Mr. Lewis was 
superintendent of a mill for about five years 
and then bought a one-half interest, with Will- 
iam Peter, in the Partridge sawmill which was 
then on the site now owned by the Campbell- 
Brown Lumber Company, on 26th street, and 
they started into the manufacture of lumber. 
Subsequently he disposed of this interest and 
opened the Bay City Savings Bank, contin- 
uing for two years sole proprietor, and then 
taking in George Young as a partner. Later 
it was incorporated with a capital of $50,000 
and became the Bay City Bank. Mr. Lewis 
remained president of this institution until he 



resigned the position, in 1886, but he continued 
on the directing board until 1890. 

Mr. Lewis was interested in other success- 
ful business enterprises. In 1879 he formed a 
partnership with Albert Miller, under the firm 
name of Miller & Lewis, which did business 
until 1 89 1, when it was reorganized as George 
Lewis & Company. This company operated a 
large shingle mill on 26th street, which had 
capacity and facilities for turning out 40,000 
shingles a day. During this same period, Mr. 
Lewis became connected with the lumber firm 
of G. H. Merrill & Company, which developed 
into and still continues as the Lewis Manufac- 
turing Company. 

It is interesting to note the rise and devel- 
oping of large enterprises, typifying as they do 
the foresight and judgment of those who ul- 
timately bring about their prosperity. The 
Lewis Manufacturing Company had its begin- 
ning in 1882, when Hyde & Trombley erected 
a planing mill at Lafayette and James streets, 
and that firm operated it for some two years. 
It then fell into the hands of the firm of Merrill 
& Campbell. The death of W. M. Campbell 
made a change in the firm style and for a time 
the business was conducted as G. H. Merrill & 
Company, George Lewis purchasing Mr. 
Campbell's interest. The status of the com- 
pany continued thus until the death of G. H. 
Merrill, in 1895, when the Lewis Manufac- 
turing Company was organized and incor- 
porated, with George Lewis as president; G. 
H. Lewis as vice-president, and Adna G. Lewis 
as secretary and treasurer. The control of the 
mill remains in the hands of Adna G. Lewis, as 
manager. The business is the manufacturing 
of and dealing in all kinds of lumber, sash, 
doors and interior finishings. As a substantial, 
well-managed concern, it stands as a leader 
among the many great industries of Bay City. 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



717 



Politically the late George Lewis was 
always identified with the Republican party. In 
Bay City he served two years as supervisor 
from the Sixth W'artl, and two years as a 
nieniher of the Board of Education. In 1872, 
witiiout undue effort on his part, he was elected 
a member of the State Legislature, and served 
consistently through the session of 1874 which 
was memorable, as it saw the revision of the 
State constitution. He was a liberal, broad- 
minded man and an ideal citizen. He owned 
much Bay City property, especially in the resi- 
dential districts and, as he conducted his busi- 
ness enterprises with marked ability, he became 
one of the largest capitalists of this section. 

Mr. Lewis was twice married. His first 
union was with Martha Campbell, who died in 
Michigan. In 1866 he married Frances Mer- 
rill, who was a daughter of Alonzo Merrill, of 
Detroit, and who still survives. Six children 
were born to this marriage : Jennie, who is the 
wife of H. R. Albee, of Portland, Oregon; 
Adna G., who is the immediate subject of this 
sketch ; Elizabeth, who is the wife of W. W. 
Chapman, of Bay City; George H., deceased; 
Frank, a resident of Bay City ; and Marjorie. 
Mrs. Lewis is a member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. 

Mr. Lewis held fraternal associations with 
the Knights of Pythias and the Masons. For 
eight years he was worshipful master of the 
Portsmouth Lodge, No. 190, F. & A. M., of 
which he was a charter member; he was also a 
member of Blanchard Chapter, No. 59, R. A. 
M. ; and Bay City Commandery, No. 26, K. T. 

Adna G. Lewis was educated in the public 
schools of Bay City, and had the benefit of his 
father's teaching and experience in entering 
upon business life. From the beginning he 
was associated with some of his father's enter- 
prises, and in 1895 he became manager of the 
Lewis Manufacturing Company. It is a pretty 



good test of a man's business capacity, in these 
days of fierce competition, to safely and se- 
curely guide a great business enterprise, avoid- 
ing labor complications and ca])italistic en- 
croachments, and still not only continue but 
add to the concern's prosperity. ]\Ir. Lewis 
has the satisfaction of knowing, on consulting 
his balance sheet, that such is the case. 

Mr. Lewis occupies one of the beautiful 
homes of Bay City and he has a domestic circle 
which includes a wife, son and daughter. He 
married Gertrude L. Layton, who is a daughter 
of Charles E. Layton, of Bay City, and their 
children are: George Merrill and Gertrude. In 
politics he takes the same interest in the Re- 
publican party as did his father, but he has 
accepted no office, the demands of his business 
taking up his time. He is a Mason, a member 
of Portsmouth Lodge, No. 190, F. & A. ^I., 
and Blanchard Chapter, No. 59, R. A. M. 




RED C. VAN TUYL, secretary and 
treasurer of the F. C. Van Tuyl 
Company, funeral directors and em- 
balmers of West Bay City, was born 
in Genesee County, Michigan, February 4, 
1859, and is a son of William L. and C. Jean- 
nette (Fifield) Van Tuyl. 

The Van Tuyl family is of Dutch ancestry 
and was founded in New Jersey prior to the 
Revolutionary War. Grandfather Isaac Van 
Tuyl was born January 16, 1792 and died Oc- 
tober 7, 1863, and was a son of John Van 
Tuyl, who was born in 1760. Isaac Van Tuyl 
was married March 31. 181 1, to Betsey Seeley. 
They lived at Ovid, Seneca County, New 
York, and in Oakland and Shiawassee counties, 
Michigan. 

William L. Van Tuvl was born in Seneca 



7i8 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



County, New York, Jul}- 24, 181 5, and died 
January 25, 1900. He came to Michigan in 
1837, among the early pioneers, settling first 
in Oakland County. \\'hile there he farmed 
and served in local offices, but in 1844 he re- 
moved to Genesee County and cleared up a 
farm in Thetford township. In 1855 he went 
to Burton, Genesee County, where he also 
farmed and then embarked in a grocery busi- 
ness at Owosso and also operated a planing- 
mill. In 1882 he came to West Bay City where 
he li\-ed retired until his death. Up to 1872 
he had always voted with the Democratic 
party, but after that his influence was 
given to the Prohibition party. His chil- 
dren were four in nuinber, the two sur- 
vivors being: Edwin, of West Bay City, 
born September 14, 1846; and Fred C, 
of this sketch. The mother still survives, mak- 
ing her home with her son Edwin. She is a 
lady with clear recollections of the early days 
in Michigan, her father having brought his 
family here in 1839. She was born August 
21, 1824, and is a daughter of Samuel and 
Sarah (Norris) Fifield. Mr. Fifield was born 
in New Hampshire, August 23, 1793. and died 
September 10, 1843. He moved to New York 
prior to his marriage, and settled in Monroe 
County where he engaged in agricultural pur- 
suits for many years. He then moved to Erie 
County and lived there until 1839, when he 
came to Michigan, settling at Waterford, in 
Oakland County. He was married May 25, 
1820, to Sarah Norris, who was born January 
21, 1794, in New Hampshire and died May 
26. 1884, at West Bay City. Mrs. Van Tuyl 
is the only surviving member of her own and 
of her husband's family. 

Our subject was 12 years of age when his 
parents located at Owosso, and there he at- 
tended school six or seven years, in the mean- 
time attendinsT to various duties in his father's 



store. In 1879 he commenced learning the 
cabinet-maker's trade and in 1881 came to 
West Bay City and entered the employ of the 
West Bay City Manufacturing Company, 
manufacturers of sash, doors and blinds, and 
he continued in that business until 1901, when 
he started in as a contractor and builder. This 
line he followed until 1903. In the fall of this 
year he entered upon the business of an under- 
taker, locating first at No. 203 South Henry 
street. On October 20, 1903, he opened his 
present place of business at No. 411 East Mid- 
land street. 

Mr. Van Tuyl is a graduate of the Massa- 
chusetts College of Embalming of the class of 
1897 and holds embalmer's license No. 165 
from the State Board of Health. From 1895 
to 1896 he was county coroner and was elected 
again in 1899, and is still in office. 

Mr. Van Tuyl was married first to Ger- 
trude H. Lester, who was a daughter of Capt. 
George H. Lester, of West Bay City. Mrs. 
\'an Tuyl died March 14, 1888, leaving one 
son. C. Brake. She was a member of the 
Methodist Church. Mr. Van Tuyl was mar- 
ried second to May E. Martinell, of ^\'est 
Bay City, and they have four children : \\'. 
Stanley, Wyvel E., Floyd M.. and Vera I. 

Mr. Van Tuyl has many pleasant fraternal 
connections. He is noble grand of Wenona 
Lodge, No. 221, I. O. O. F. ; and has mem- 
bership with Othello Lodge, No. 116, Knights 
of Pythias; Court Miranda, No. 326, Inde- 
pendent Order of Foresters: Modern ^^^ood- 
man of America : and the Union Life Guards. 

Through his years of residence here, ]\Ir. 
Van Tuyl has maintained the same business 
status which became recognized as soon as he 
entered the business world. Strict attention to 
details and careful management have brought 
about very satisfactory results. He is highly 
esteemed as an intelligent, substantial citizen, 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



719 



one who takes pleasure in promoting e\ery 
movement contributive to the welfare of West 
Bay City. 




stock-raising and stock-dealing. 



.LIAM C. WALSH, a well-known 
citizen oi the village of Pincon- 
ning, conducts a livery at that 
place and is extensively engaged in 
He was born 
at Pontiac, ^Michigan, and is a son of Redmond 
and Margaret (McAulifYe) Walsh. 

Redmond Walsh was born in Ireland aiul 
reared in England, where he met and married 
the mother of our subject, who was born there. 
He came to this country, and for eight or ten 
years lived at Toronto, Canada, where he fol- 
lowed his trade of mason and also engaged in 
farming. He later moved to Pontiac, ]\Iichi- 
gan, and is now living at Owosso, Michigan, 
in his 71st year. His wife is in the 68th year 
of her age. Mr. and ^Irs. \^'alsh became pa- 
rents of seven children, all of whom are living, 
namely: Nellie, wife of Peter Betzing; John 
M., a farmer of Owosso, Michigan; Redmowd, 
Jr. ; Margaret ; Neil R. ; of Owosso, Michigan ; 
Daniel J. ; and William C. The five first 
named were born in Toronto, Canada, and the 
two last named were born at Pontiac, 
Michigan. 

William C. Walsh, after completing his 
schooling, turned his attention to mercantile 
business, buying bankrupt stocks. He later 
conducted a general store at Corunna, Michi- 
gan, five years, and in 1895 traveled through 
tlie Southern States for the Duncan .\rt Com- 
pany, meeting with considerable success and 
gaining largely in experience. In 1896 he re- 
turned to Michigan, making the trip from 
Jacksonville, Florida, to New York City by 
steamer. He then purchased a bankrupt stock 
at Xew Eothrop, Michigan, which he closed 



out. then purchased one at Corunna, where he 
continued in the mercantile business some 
years. He had in mind at this time a stock 
farm, and, after selling his store, in igoo he 
purchased 200 acres of land in section 27, Pin- 
conning township, where he has since been lo- 
cated. He still retains 160 acres of this farm, 
which is well-improved in every respect, and 
lias dealt in stock on a large scale. He makes a 
specialty of raising Durham and Shorthorn 
cattle, and Ohio Improved Chester W'hite hogs, 
which he sells to farmers for breeding purposes 
and has shipped in pairs to all parts of the 
country. He buys about 150 head of cattle 
of the common breeds during the summer 
months, fattens them and in the fall shi]3s in 
car-load lots to the BufYalo and Detroit mar- 
kets, also buying of the farmers for immediate 
shipment. During the past year he has dealt 
largely in horses among the farmers of this 
section. 

On April 6. 1899. Mr. Walsh was married 
to Clara Worth, a daughter of Williard Worth, 
a pioneer farmer of Maple Grove, Saginaw 
County, Michigan, who died in 1893. He is 
survived by his widow who resides at Mason, 
Michigan. This union resulted in the birth of 
three children : Kathleen. lx)rn February 9, 
1900: Williard, born July 30, 1902; and Mar- 
garet. The Walsh family are Catholics. In 
politics our subject has been unswering in his 
support of the Democartic party. 






IIILIP V. WAGNER, proprietor of 
the "Center Avenue Dairy Farm," 
which is situated in section 19, 
Hampton township, but two miles 
east of the city limits, has been a resident of 
Bay County since Iwyhood. He was born on 
the celebrated river Rhine, in the province of 



■J20 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



Hessen-Nassau, Prussia, Germany, September 
17, 1847, and is a son of Carl and Elizabeth 
(Herbert) Wagner. 

Our subject's parents were born in the same 
part of the fatherland as himself, and they came 
to America in 1855. The father died in 1888, 
aged 68 years, after a life spent in farming. 
He was successful in his agricultural enter- 
prises and left a good estate to his children. He 
was a man of sterling character and was se- 
lected for local offices on many occasions, serv- 
ing as a justice of the peace and for 12 years 
was a member of the township board. He was 
a deacon in the German Lutheran Church. His 
estimable wife still survives, making her home 
with our subject and bearing well the weight 
of her 85 years. The family consisted of three 
sons and four daughters, namely : Frederick ; 
William ; Philip F. ; Mrs. Amelia Ramm. of 
Bay City; Mrs. Elizabeth Diehl, of Bay City; 
Mrs. Gertrude Shultz, deceased ; and Mrs. 
Louisa Flues, deceased. 

Our subject was but eight years old when 
his parents settled in Lower Saginaw, now Bay 
City, at which time there were but few houses 
in the place. His father bought a farm of 40 
acres, on which our subject resided until 1889, 
when he sold it and purchased 60 acres in sec- 
tion 19. Hampton township. Here he carries 
on general farming and dairying and his place 
is well known as the "Center Avenue Dairy 
Farm." He keeps 18 head of high grade milch 
cows and supplies a large city demand. Mr. 
Wagner has a first-class orchard of four acres 
and has erected excellent buildings and made 
many admirable impro\ements on his property. 

In 1 87 1 Mr. Wagner was married to Louisa 
Shilling, who was born in Huron County, 
Michigan, August 22, 1853. '^"c' is a daughter 
of Frederick and Katherine Shilling, farming: 
people, natives of Germany. Wx. and Mrs. 
Wagner have had seven children, namely: 



William, who resides in his father's tenant 
house and works for his father; Carl, who lives 
at home; Mrs. Ida Klopf, of Merritt township; 
Mrs. Elizabeth Plesternith, of Bay City ; Fred- 
erick, employed in Bay City; and Bertha and 
Ellen, who live at home. Mr. Wagner and 
family belong to the Bethel German Lutheran 
Church, on Madison and McKinley avenues. 
Bay City. 

Politically a Democrat, j\Ir. Wagner has 
filled many responsible public offices in Hamp- 
ton township. For nine years he was township 
treasurer, for 18 years he was on the School 
Board and was president of School District 
No. 5, and for four years was township grain 
commissioner. His reputation has always been 
that of a man of strict integrity and the duties 
of public office have been performed with the 
same care and thoroughness as those pertaining 
to his own affairs. 




OHN McGUINNES. who with his 
twin brother Edward is operating the 
splendidly improved farm in section 
2. Monitor township, that was left by 
their father, was lx>rn July 13, 1872. He 
is a son of Edward and Anna (Brisbois) 
McGuinnes. 

Edward McGuinnes was born in Erie, 
Pennsylvania, in 1842. He attended the com- 
mon schools of his native place and when 22 
years old came to Kawkawlin. Bay County, 
Michigan, where he worked at lumbering sev- 
eral years for Ballon & Company. He was 
engaged in summer in dri\-ing logs, and in 
cutting timber in the winter. Between seasons, 
he worked on the farm which he had bought in 
Monitor township, consisting of 380 acres. 
For a number of years he applied himself to 
clearing the wood from this land and to seed- 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



721 



ing the new ground. When lie could not get 
hired men. his sons helped him in this work. 
He lumhered on shares with others, and later 
undertook a lumber deal on his own account, 
leaving the operation of the farm to his twin 
sons, then 15 years old. 

Mr. iMcGuinnes had the reputation of 
knowing a good horse and took much interest 
in raising cattle. He built a modern brick 
house, and erected three fine barns, provided 
with every convenience for stock. Two years 
before his death he bought an interest in a 
hardware concern, which was then conducted 
under the firm name of Lambert, Staudacher 
& IMcGuinnes, but the business not proving 
profitable, he soon disposed of his interest. He 
also owned several pieces of city property. In 
politics he was a Democrat, and served on the 
School Board for several years. 

The union of Edward McGuinnes with 
Anna Brisbois resulted in five children, as fol- 
lows : Margaret, who became Mrs. George 
Staudacher, of AVest Bay City: .\nna, who 
married Gilbert Archambeau, of Monitor 
township; Mary, who is at home: and Edward 
and John (twins), who operate the farm. 

John McQuinnes received his early mental 
training in the common schools of Kawkawlin, 
and also took a course of study in St. Bede 
College. On finishing this he returned to the 
farm, and continued working it with his 
brother Edward. They have turned their at- 
tention to grain and stock-raising, in which 
they were well drilled by their father. 

John McGuinnes was married June 29, 
1904. to Lottie Abare. a daughter of Morris 
and Josephine (Larges) .-\bare, of West Bay 
City. Her parents formerly lived in Detroit, 
where the father was a fisherman. About i860 
they moved to Bay City, where the father fol- 
lowed his vocation. He was a government sur- 
veyor for 14 years. He and his wife had i :; 



children, eight of whom are living. Millie 
(Mrs. Eugene La Flame) and our subject's 
wife were the only daughters. The sons are 
all fishermen except ont, who keeps the light- 
house at Detour, Michigan. In politics, Mr. 
McGuinnes is a stanch Democrat. Fraternally, 
he is a member of the Knights of the Modern 
Maccabees, and holds a position on the auditing 
committee of his tent. The members of the 
family are Catholics and attend the Church of 
the Sacred Heart. 




HOMAS MOLYXEAUX, one of the 
good farmers and respected citizens 
of Williams township, who owns a 
fine farm of 79 acres in section 4, 
was born in County Down,, Ireland, May 10, 
1852, and is a son of Alexander and Sarah 
(Hanna) Molyneaux. 

The father of our subject was a shoemaker 
and also farmed five acres of rented land, this 
being considered a quite large farm there. He 
died in Ireland shortly after the rebellion. He 
was a member of the Presbyterian Church. 
The mother of Mr. Molyneaux still lives in the 
old home in County Down. The children of 
the family were: James, who died in Ireland in 
1901 : William, who died in Ireland in 1885; 
Thomas, of this sketch : Ellen, a resident of 
Loverpool, England: Alexander, of Bay City; 
and Catherine, who resides with the mother in 
Ireland. 

Our subject came to America in March, 
1 87 1, and secured work in the Silas Merchant 
iron-pipe factory, at Cleveland. Ohio, where he 
remained two years and then came to Bav City. 
He worked in a lumber camp for Sage & Com- 
pany during the first winter and then came to 
Bay City and secured a position with the street 
railway company, with which he continued for 



722 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



20 years. He drove the first horse car into 
Essexville. 

In 1880 Mr. Molyneaux bought his farm, 
which was then far out from civihzed tracks. 
There were no roads except the ones he made 
himself and his nearest neighbor hved in a 
log house off in the next section. His first 
purchase was 40 acres, which he managed to 
clear while still liA'ing at Bay City. The tim- 
ber he burned as there was absolutely no mar- 
ket for it, the same timber which now com- 
mands $17 a thousand feet. Later he built a 
comfortable house and two substantial barns. 

On September 4, 1878, at Bay City, Mr. 
Molyneaux was married to Jennie Patterson, 
who was a daughter of Aritus and Amelia Pat- 
terson, natives of Canada. Mrs. Molyneaux 
died April 22, 1890, the mother of three chil- 
dren, of whom the only survivor is Thomas, 
who was born July 5, 1880 and lives on a farm 
adjoining his father. On May 11, 1891, Mr. 
Molyneaux was married to Marion Maitland, 
who is a daughter of John and Sarah (Jobes) 
Maitland, and five children have been born to 
this union : Lola. Iiorn July 28, 1892 : Margaret 
E., born October 21, 1894; Naomi T., born 
June 3, 1897; Dorothy J., bom June 11, 1899; 
and Wallace M., born December 29, 1903. 

Mrs. Molyneaux's parents lived in Canada 
prior to their marriage. Her father came first 
to Bay City and built a home on 33d street and 
Jennison avenue and then went back for his 
wife. For 25 years he was an employee of the 
Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad. Mrs. Moly- 
neaux has one sister, JNIargaret I., who is an 
instructor in the Fremont School in Bay City. 

Our subject and Mr. Maitland are both 
identified with the Republican party. Both are 
prominent in the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
our subject being a class leader, church trustee 
and treasurer. Both he and his father-in-law 
are members of Valley Lodge, No. 189, I. O. 



O. F. Mr. Molyneaux belongs to South Bay 
City Tent, No. 177, Knights of the Modern 
Maccabees. 



OHN A. VOGTMANN, sole owner and 
proprietor of the Frankenlust Flour- 
ing Mill, one of the oldest industrial 
plants in its section of Bay County, 
was born April 17, 1863, in Mittel Franken, 
Bavaria, Germany, and is a son of Leonard and 
Elizabeth (Dankmayer) Vogtmann. 

The parents of our subject passed their 
entire lives in Bavaria, where the father fol- 
lowed the trade of weaving. The family con- 
sisted of seven children, — five sons and two 
daughters. The only members to come to 
America were our subject and his brother 
Adam, who is a farmer in Beaver township. 

Mr. Vogtmann attended school until he 
was 16 years old and then spent four years 
learning the milling business. In 1883, wish- 
ing to improve his worldly chances, he came to 
America and settled in Bay County, Michigan. 
Through the first year he worked as a laborer 
and for the next three years was engaged as a 
farmer for one employer, and then he went into 
lumbering. During the two years he was thus 
engaged he studied the workings of the various 
mills that came under his observation, his ob- 
ject being the purchase of a mill so that he 
could continue work at the trade he had 
learned. After laboring one year more, this 
time in a brick-yard, he rented a mill in Sagi- 
naw, but this venture did not prove a success 
as he lacked the capital to get himself well es- 
tablished. He was then employed by the 
owner of a mill in Freeland township and 
operated that mill successfully for three years. 

In 1892 Mr. Vogtmann bought his present 
mill property. It was the first mill built in 
Bay County, Adam Hecht having erected it 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



1^1 



over 50 years ago. When Mr. Vogtmann took 
cliarge, the capacity of the mill was 35 barrels, 
which he has increased to an output of 175 
barrels. He rebuilt the mill and installed 
modern machinery and now has cxxry equip- 
ment necessary to make all kinds of flour. His 
trade covers all this territory and for many 
years lie has been looked on as the most reliable 
miller in this section. In addition to rebuilding 
antl refitting the mill, he purchased a farm of 
four acres in section 2, on which he has built a 
comfortable residence and large warehouses. 
He does a very large business, amounting to 
$70,000 annually. 

In 1892 Mr. Vogtmann was married to 
Katie Burk, who was born in Bavaria, and 
came to Saginaw County, Michigan, with her 
parents, when a child of eight years. They 
have two children, John antl Mary. 

Mr. Vogtmann is one of the leading mem- 
bers of St. John's German Lutheran Church at 
Amelith. He is a man who has made his own 
way in the world and has reached his indepen- 
dent condition through his own industry. He 
is well known and very highly respected. 




HARLES P. McDonald,* a highly 
respected citizen and well-known 
farmer of Hampton township, own- 
ing a well-cultivated farm of 23 
acres, situated in section 13, was born at Mont- 
real, Canada, February 17, 1853, and is a son 
of Terrence and Sarah (Woods) McDonald. 

The father of our subject was born in Bel- 
fast, County Down, Ireland, and came to Mont- 
real, Canada, in 1848. The mother was born 
in Dublin and came to Montreal at a later date 
than Mr. McDonald. The father died at Bay 
City in 1894. aged 76 years, but the mother still 

38 



resides there in the city. They reared a large 
family as follows : Charles P. ; James, of Mont- 
real; John; Thomas, who is on the Pacific 
Coast; Peter, of Bay City; Andrew, of Wis- 
consin; Terrence, of Canada; Edward, of Bay 
City; and Sarah, who married a Mr. McDon- 
ald in Clinton County, New York. 

For fi\e years after settling in Montreal, 
Terrence McDonald carried on a butchering 
business and then accompanied his brother to 
Clinton County, New York, where he worked 
at railroad construction. He subsequently 
joined our subject in Michigan. 

Charles P. McDonald was three weeks old 
when his parents removed to Clinton County, 
New York, where he remained until he was 17 
years old. In 1865 he came to Bay City and 
has been a resident of the county and ever since, 
working in sawmills from 1865 until 1871, 
when he began to farm. Mr. McDonald ob- 
tained his land when it was still unbroken 
prairie and has made all the improvements upon 
it. He has a comfortable home with substan- 
tial out-buildings, barns and fences, and de- 
votes his land to gardening principally. He 
also rents land on which he cultivates sugar 
beets. 

On August 15, 1875, Mr. McDonald was 
married to Mary Van Someson, who was born 
March 4, 1859, at Detroit and came to Bay 
County with her parents when one year old. 
She was a daughter of Henry and Barbara 
(Lincoln) Van Someson, early pioneers here, 
of Holland and Belgian ancestry. Mr. Van 
Someson, who was a carpenter, built many of 
the residences still standing in Bay City. Mrs. 
McDonald died in March, 1899, the beloved 
mother of these children : Mabel, a teacher in a 
religious order, who is located at St. James, 
Beaver Island ; Clara, who died aged 20 years ; 
Sadie, who is her father's capable housekeeper; 
Emma ; Terrence J. ; Nellie ; Mary, who died 



724 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



aged i6 years; Edward, of St. Paul; John; 
James ; Joseph and Margaret. Mr. McDonald 
and family belong to the Catholic Church. 




EORGE A. ALLEN,* who has the 
distinction of being the oldest insur- 
ance agent at West Bay City, Mich- 
igan, his business dating from 1877, 
is also an honored surviving officer of the 
Civil War. Mr. Allen was born in Macomb 
County, Michigan, March 4, 1835, and is a son 
of Dr. Samuel C. and Julia Ann (Bickson) 
Allen. 

Dr. Samuel C. Allen was born in New Jer- 
sey. When he came to Michigan, he had a 
wife and several children. He settled at Utica. 
Macomb County, taking up a farm on the 
Clinton River, and it was here that our sub- 
ject was born, in an old log house. Dr. Allen 
also owned and operated a sawmill on the 
banks of this river, and continued to practice 
his profession, riding over the untilled prairies 
for miles and miles in every direction and 
undergoing many hardships, such as fell to the 
pioneer physicians of Michigan. About 1841 
he moved to Clarkson, Oakland County, where 
he devoted all his time to the practice of his 
profession, frequently driving the whole dis- 
tance to Flint. In 1857 he located at Byron, 
where he continued in practice until his death 
in 1866, aged 70 years. His wife died in 1861, 
aged 65 years. Early in life Dr. Allen was a 
Whig; later he identified himself with the Re- 
publican party. He was a man far above the 
average, well read both in literature and in his 
profession and a man of influence wherever he 
lived. He was a Mason. 

George A. Allen was well educated, for the 
days of his youth, at Clarkson Academy, Oak- 
land County, and then entered into a mercan- 



tile business at Byron, whither his parents had 
removed. In i860 he accepted a position as 
bookkeeper for Stewart & Pratt, at Hazelhurst, 
Mississippi, but the outbreak of the Civil War 
changed his plans and probably the whole 
course of his life. Manly and outspoken, he 
soon found that the only way to secure his lib- 
erty was to leave at once for the North, and 
several of his associates had the same ex- 
perience. In the fall of 1S61 Mr. Allen en- 
listed as a private in Company A, loth Reg., 
Michigan Vol., Inf., and before leaving the 
State he was made quartermaster sergeant and 
filled this position until he was promoted to a 
lieutenantcy and transferred to Company C. He 
continued with this company through all its 
subsequent campaigns, including Sherman's 
"March to the Sea," and returned practically 
unharmed, although on numerous occasions 
he had holes shot through his uniform and had 
his horse shot from under him. He was a sol- 
dier who displayed courage in face of danger 
and fidelity to the cause he had espoused. 

After his return from the war, Mr. Allen 
clerked for one year in Detroit, was married in 
1867 and then came to West Bay City. Here 
he conducted a general retail store, on the cor- 
ner of Midland and Henry streets, for 10 years, 
it being one of the first stores on the West 
Side and his energy and faculty soon built up a 
lucrative business. In 1877 he entered into 
the insurance business and again he was a bus- 
iness pioneer. He has continued in the insur- 
ance line ever since, dealing also in real estate 
and has owned and developed a large amount 
of property. 

In 1867 he married Emma Hicks, who is a 
daughter of W. F. Hicks, then of West Bay 
City, now of Southfield, Michigan, and they 
had five children, the three survivors being: 
Alena, wife of Harry J. Walsh, of West Bay 
City; Hicks, of Dayton, Ohio; and George, of 



AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 



725 



West Bay City. Tlie family belong to the First 
Presbyterian Clnuxh of West Bay City. 

Mr. Allen has been a life-long Republican. 
He was township clerk of Wenona until it was 
included in West Bay City, and is now a mem- 
ber of the Common Council. He is public- 
spirited and progressive and takes a good citi- 
zen's interest in promoting the city's welfare. 

Mr. Allen was a charter member of 
Wenona Lodge, No. 296, F. & A. M. of which 
he is past master; he is also a member of 
Blanchard Chapter, No. 59, R. A. M. ; and 
Bay City Council, No. 53, R. & S. M. He 
assisted in the organization of Henry S. Bur- 
nett Post, No. 278, G. A. R., and gave the or- 
ganization its name. He has always taken a 
great interest in this noble jjody and has been 
its commander. He is also a member of the 
National League of Veterans and Sons. 




RKDERICK D. PAIGE,* one of the 
highly respected citizens and good 
farmers of Kawkawlin township, 
who owns a well-cultivateil farm of 
80 acres, situated in section 7, was born in 
1864 in Bangor township, Bay County, Mich- 
igan, and is a son of Daniel W. and Carrie 
(Shcpard) Paige. 

Daniel Webster Paige, the father of our 
subject, was born at Lockport, New York. His 
first wife, our subject's mother, was born in 
Ohio. In 1866 they removed from Bangor to 
Kawkawlin township, where Mrs. Paige died 
in 1883, leaving four children: Frederick D. ; 
Ralpli, a farmer of Kawkawlin township; 
Alice, widow of James Calvert ; and Harry, a 
farmer of Kawkawlin township. The father's 
second marriage was to Minerva Hilderbrandt, 
who was born in New York. The two children 
of this union are: Jessie ancj Hattie. Our 



subject's father, who has retired from active 
labor, resides in Kawkawlin village. 

Frederick D. Paige obtained his education 
in the common schools of Kawkawlin town- 
ship and prepared himself for the life of a 
farmer. His first farm, Ixiught in 1887, was a 
part of the family homestead ; later he bought 
more land in section 29, in the same township, 
both farms being sold at a later date and the 
present one bought. He has excellent land 
here and it would take a large of¥er to induce 
him to part with it. He has made excellent 
improvements. 

In 1889 Mr. Paige married Mary Bedell, 
who is a daughter of Calvin Bedell, a farmer of 
Kawkawlin township. They have had six chil- 
dren, as follows: Jacob, a sturdy youth of 12 
years; Elmer, aged 10 years; Florence, aged 
eight years; Max, deceased at the age of two 
years; Bessie, deceased at the age of three 
years; and Benjamin, a child of 11 months. 

Politically, Mr. Paige is a Democrat ; he 
has been school inspector and is now serving 
as township commissioner. He belongs to 
Lodge No. 148, I. O. O. F.. of Kawkawlin 
township. 




GUIS ROSEBUSH,* a well-known 
citizen of Linwood, was formerly in 
the hotel business here for 14 years. 
His hotel was destroyed by fire in 
1901, and he is now rebuilding it. He also 
owns a saloon in Arenac County. Michigan. 

The subject of this sketch was born in 
Canada in 1852. He is a .son of Samuel and 
Sylvia (Merrian) Rosebush, the former of 
whom was born in Canada, and died in 1882. 
at the age of 71 3'ears. The mother pns.scd 
away in 1886. in her 75th year. They reared 
12 children, of whom Louis was the sixth. 
Seven are still living;. 



726 



HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY 



The parents of Samuel Rosebusli were na- 
tives of Canada, and their grandparents were 
born on De Rosa street, Paris, France. This 
street was named after the original name of the 
family, which was afterward changed to 
Rosebush. 

The Merrians, grandparents of Sjdvia Mer- 
rian, came from Spain to this country in the 
early colonial days, settled on the Connecticut 
River and endured all the hardships of pioneer 
life. Some of them were ofticers in the Revo- 
lutionary War. In the possession of the fam- 
ily were formerly some of the relics of that 
conflict, such as silver buckles worn by their 
ancestors in military service. 

Louis Rosebush went to New York State 
in 1868. There he remained six months and 
then came to Saginaw County, Michigan, 
where he at once went to work in the lumber 
camps, and continued thus for two and a half 
years. He then returned to Canada to visit 
his parents. He came back to Michigan where 
he remained for two years, after which he went 
West and spent four years among the Choc- 



taws, Chickasaws and Cherokees, in the Red 
River region, engaged in lumbering for him- 
self. About 1876, he returned to Canada and 
brought his father, mother, two brothers and 
two sisters to Michigan with him. 

Mr. Rosebush was married in 1880 to 
Laurie Annie Roe, a daughter of Theodore 
and Theresa (Young) Roe. Theodore Roe 
died when Mrs. Rosebush was four years old. 
His widow now lives in Saginaw, Michigan. 

Mr. and Mrs. Rosebush have had eight 
children, namely: Sylvia, Hiram, Samuel, 
Willie, Bertie, Laurie, Fred and Louis. Sylvia 
was born in 1883; she married Victor Turcott, 
who was 1)orn in Canada, and is an engineer. 
Hiram was born in 1886; Samuel died in in- 
fancy; Willie was born in 1889; Bertie, in 
1891 ; Laurie, in 1892; Fred, in 1894; and 
Louis, in 1896. 

In politics, Mr. Rosebush is a Republican. 
Fraternally, he is a member of Bedell Lodge, 
No. 248, I. O. O. F. His religious views are 
nonsectarian. Mrs. Rosebush is a member of 
the Catholic Church- 



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